Stay
by crimsonmarie
Summary: As an actor, Edward Cullen is surrounded by people that he couldn't really care less about. What happens when he buys a house in the middle of nowhere and meets his new neighbors? AH, AU, ExB, rated M for future chapters and language.
1. Chapter 1

***Edward POV***

I felt myself physically relax as the two-story rustic cabin came into view over the minor hill in the road and sighed, letting my fingers ease their grip on the steering wheel of my rental car.

Being in the clear mountain air of the Adirondacks was overwhelmingly soothing after being all but choked with smog at home in California. And I'd really missed the snow – it was ten times more fun to drive in with the thrill of three-sixties and the momentary weightlessness that went along with them when I was pressed back against the seat.

I'd taken a vacation to Lake George, New York with one of the girls I'd tried dating upon arriving in California and had fallen in love with the quaint gift shops and entertainment spilling out of every bar that lined the boardwalk. While she was very willing to stay in the hotel room for the majority of the weekend, I wanted to get out and explore.

So I drove the flashy rental car around while she pouted and raided the mini refrigerator, fearing I'd gotten lost when houses and businesses stopped appearing as frequently as they once had. It had been about twenty minutes before I spotted houses and churches and people milling around, but failed to find a place to turn around in. I'd passed a high school before I figured out that I could turn around there, had quickly taken a right turn after it and somehow ended up on a quiet street with children playing with basketballs in the road and pets roaming freely.

I'd spotted an 'Open House' sign in front of a log cabin and out of curiosity, pulled up behind a blue SUV.

Out of the many things that I'd loved about this small part of the world, I'd also found the perfect place to escape to just to relax. I'd found the realtor and offered her much more than the asking price. Her jaw dropped before she stuttered a bit and managed to say that the house was mine.

The sign was off the front yard and I'd gone back to the hotel one house richer.

And then I'd gone back to California with an ex-girlfriend fuming in the seat on the airplane next to me. I still really don't understand why she'd gotten so pissed off and had called our whole "relationship" off when she found out that I'd bought another home.

Regardless, I hadn't really minded. She wasn't nearly as interesting as she and the tabloids made her out to be.

Pulling into the plowed driveway, I quickly got out of the car and stretched my stiff limbs.

Going home to Forks, Washington to be with my family probably would've made them happier than anything, but after working my ass off on the latest movie I'd signed on to, all I really wanted was some peace and quiet.

That was not something I'd be granted if I went home. There was an over-excitable younger sister, an equally as excited mother, an older brother that thrived on tormenting me about anything and everything and a father that still slightly disapproved of my career choice waiting there for me.

And I loved my family. They were everything anyone could ever want in a family and I tried my best not to take them for granted.

But just like every other family on the planet, they were mostly handled well in small doses. I needed a breather and time on my own to recollect and remember that I was, indeed, a mature twenty-five year old normal man before visiting them for long periods of time.

Closing the driver's side door and shaking my head of the guilt forming there, I popped the trunk and grabbed the two over stuffed duffel bags. Alice, my youngest sister, had managed to surprise me with one of her very random visits and had insisted on helping me pack when she heard that I was disappearing for the next three weeks.

She hadn't done so without her little quips about how mom and dad had missed me and were counting the days until Christmas and when I'd be home with them for an extended amount of time.

I had a sneaking suspicion that my mother, Esme, had casually encouraged Alice to come to California and try talking me into coming back home with her.

And I would've if work hadn't been so grueling the last two weeks. Pressure was a common feeling at the end of a movie being wrapped, but by the time our deadline had begun rapidly approaching, we still had quite a few things to shoot.

There had been a few days where I hadn't been able to see the _real_ light of day for over forty-eight hours straight. The make up artists were miracle workers for the way they covered the bags under my eyes and managed to clear them of any redness lingering there.

We'd all been allowed a solid eight hours of sleep, no more and no less. I enjoyed sleep; in fact, I woke up every morning looking forward to the fact that I'd be back in my hugely comfortable bed in fourteen hours. Eight hours had never been enough for me and I questioned why I wanted to become an actor almost daily when I was roused by one of my co-stars literally jumping on my back and shaking me awake.

Shouldering both bags, I pulled the cabin keys out of one of the side pockets and started the surprisingly easy walk up the driveway.

I expected to slip and slide my way up to the stairs of the porch. I'd kept a close eye on the weather over this way and had seen that there had been storm after storm the week before I planned on arriving. The fact that my sneakers were easily finding traction on salt made me smile softly as I quickly stole a look at the cabin identical to mine across the street.

The shy, timid girl with vivid brown eyes and flowing brown hair had been the first to approach me when I'd bought this place. I'd been slightly apprehensive about strange girls just waltzing up the porch steps – it hadn't been the first time that an over obsessed fan had found out where I lived and tried to get into my good graces - and had hesitated to open the door when she'd knocked. Instead of flinging the door open like I should've, I mashed my face against the peephole and eyed her.

She was attractive. At least, as much as the skewed vision of the peephole allowed her to be. She'd had a twelve pack of Heineken gripped tightly in one hand as she nervously stole glances across the street and bit her bottom lip. She didn't have a purse with her and when I lurched up on my toes to get a better glimpse at the small woman waiting for me to answer the door I was pressed against, I saw that she was barefoot.

The last two things were very important factors to me. They meant that she probably lived close by and although she might've been a fan of some sort, she obviously wasn't going to attack me with a camera or demand an autograph.

Plus, she had beer. And I had nothing but a loaf of bread and a few bottles of water from the Cumberland Farms convenient store down the road in my refrigerator.

So I'd opened the door and she quickly introduced herself as Bella Swan, fumbling over her words as she jerkily handed the beer to me, her face beginning to redden.

I invited her in and she refused, which made me grin like an ass at her as her cheeks positively flamed red.

This was the first woman I'd met in the past year and a half that hadn't wanted to come inside my home to see what it was like, or if I'd make a move on her, or to see what she could stuff in her pocket while I wasn't looking to either keep for herself or sell on eBay.

I thanked her for the beer, promising to pay her back. She shook her head, her face even redder – if possible - as she crossed her hands in front of her and shyly looked down at her feet as she made an excuse about a 'Welcome to the Neighborhood' gift.

So I ended up thanking her again and she darted off the porch after a stuttered response and possibly some excuse about leaving, almost tripping over her own feet as she ran across the road and disappeared into the cabin across the street.

I'd repaid her in kind a few days later by finding a bottle of red wine in the small and cramped local liquor store and marching my ass over to her place to give it to her.

She was slightly more comfortable when it was me standing on her porch, and had invited me in, her smile bright and open as she moved out of the way so that I could step in.

A man fifteen times bigger than she was was sprawled across the long blue couch in the living room I stepped in to, immediately jumping up to introduce himself as her boyfriend, Jacob Black.

They both insisted that I stay over for dinner and the thought of eating one more peanut butter sandwich as one more meal made it easy to accept their offer.

Bella barbequed out in their large backyard and we sat at a round white picnic table, getting acquainted and laughing over beer and perfectly grilled steak.

Neither of them ever mentioned anything about my career or even knowing who the hell I might've been. And when the meal was over, I watched almost gleefully as Bella and Jacob stuck my plates and theirs in the dishwasher, turning it on when it was full.

There had been a few fans that had kept the silverware I'd eaten with, so watching as Bella slammed the dishwasher door and turned the knob to start it was one of the most relieving things that had happened to me in a long while.

And by the end of the night, I was strutting across their yard and back to my own with a mile wide smile on my face.

It had been a very long time since I'd been able to have dinner – or any meal, for that matter – with people that either didn't know or didn't care that I was a famous actor. It was _glorious_.

I only stayed for a week that time, but had said goodbye to them both before leaving.

The next time I'd been able to make it back was February and the snow in my driveway was higher than my car was taller. So I parked on the side of the road and got out, dumbfounded about how I was going to make it into my house.

It hadn't dawned on me when I bought the house that I would need to shovel the wide driveway I'd been so fond of when I visited during the winter months.

So I'd slid my way across the street and into Bella's driveway, gripping the railing to her porch as I hauled myself up the stairs and knocked on her door.

She'd greeted me happily and invited me in again. I shook my head, smiling at her and then pointed behind me to the mound of snow covering my driveway, asking if I could borrow her shovel.

She laughed at me, placing a hand over her mouth as she waved me in with her other hand.

"Jake!" she'd called, closing the door behind me as I stood, dumbfounded, in the living room. "Honey, Edward needs to borrow the snow blower!"

And I panicked. I didn't know how to work one of those. My father had always made us use shovels and I'd come inside with blisters on my numb hands. But it was something I was used to; something I'd been ready to have again.

The whole prospect of using a machine that I would probably break just by touching it was slightly nerve-wracking. I was an old-fashioned kind of guy and although I loved my laptop, it was the only piece of modern technology that I owned and knew how to operate.

"Bella, I don't…"

She'd waved me off again and I huffed, running a hand through my unruly bronze hair as she disappeared deeper into the house. She reappeared momentarily with Jacob in tow, telling me that he'd help me clear out my driveway.

I protested and she waved me off again, rolling her eyes at me as the two of them led me into the kitchen and through a door leading out into the garage.

He'd handed me a shovel, pushed the button to automatically open the garage door and walked over to a contraption that looked highly dangerous.

It roared to life as I stood there, stupidly holding onto a shovel and watching as he pushed it out of the garage and across the street, attacking the mound of snow in front of him with ease.

I turned to Bella, holding up the shovel and asking her what in the hell I was doing with it when he was taking care of everything easily.

She laughed at me again and explained that he was going to make a path for me so that I could start shoveling off the porch while he finished the driveway.

"He really doesn't need to do it, you know. If he could just show me how to use it," I'd swallowed hard, looking cautiously out of the garage and watching Jacob move the monster easily around my driveway before looking back to her, "and I could do it. I don't want you two to go to so much trouble."

"Edward, it's what neighbors do," she'd explained easily, shrugging her shoulders and smirking at me. "Don't even worry about it."

"I'll take you both out to dinner," I'd offered quickly, throwing my free arm out at my side. "To make up for it."

She'd rolled her eyes and waved me off again. "It's what neighbors do," she'd said again, crossing her arms over her chest and shivering slightly. "I'll have hot cocoa for the both of you when you're done."

And before I could protest, she'd disappeared back inside and closed the door firmly behind her, effectively ending our conversation and leaving me with no choice but to walk back to my house.

Jacob and I had had the driveway and my porch cleared almost an hour later and when I tried simply returning the shovel to their garage, he'd grabbed my arm and led me into the house where there were three mugs of steaming hot chocolate sitting on the table, complete with whipped cream and marshmallows.

She'd informed me that whenever it snowed as heavily as it had and I wasn't here, they'd clear the driveway if they knew I was coming. Protesting didn't get me anywhere, as they both stared blankly at me until I finally sighed and agreed, writing down their phone number and telling them that I'd call them when I was showing up during the winter months.

And it had been that way for the past year. I always offered to take them out somewhere to make up for it, but they both said that it wasn't a problem and ended up making me join them for their dinner on my first night back.

After a while, I stopped being opposed to it. Bella was an amazing cook and I couldn't deny that I really enjoyed the company. It was comforting and relaxing and just what I'd always need after the hour long drive from the Albany airport.

Adjusting the bag straps on my shoulders, I tilted my head slightly when I only saw Bella's old red truck in the driveway. The both of them were always home when I showed up and I knew that the garage was way too packed with anything and everything for a car to fit in there.

Shrugging, I walked up the four steps of the porch, my eyes landing on a note taped to my front door.

_Edward,_

_Come on over when you're all set._

_Bella_

I chuckled, shaking my head as I snatched the note off the door and slid the key into the lock, pushing the door open and walking inside.

I dropped the heavy bags in the doorway before closing the door behind me and stretching my arms above my head again. Moaning happily and rolling my head around on my shoulders to ease the tension in my neck, I stepped over them and walked through the living room and into the dining room to grab the land line.

I was gloriously cut off from even my cell phone while I was here. It was so far out in the middle of nowhere that there wasn't any reception for cell phones whatsoever.

I _loved_ it.

The house was fully furnished, thanks to my mother. She and my father had made a trip out this way to see the house I'd bought and get a feel for the small town I absolutely adored and gushed to them about whenever I could.

Upon seeing the sparsely decorated and barely furnished log cabin, she quickly dragged my father back into the car and managed to find her way to Saratoga Springs and the Taft furniture store.

I barely had time to blink before they'd left and had spent my time groaning to Bella and Jacob about how she was going to make my escape completely furnished for the invisible people I'd have visiting each time I was there.

My mouth dropped when I saw two – not one, but _two_ – furniture vans pull up outside of the house and start unloading a massive amount of furniture and decorative statues into my home three hours later.

And I couldn't even get mad about it because that was what my mother loved to do. She renovated and redesigned and bought furniture and fixtures that no one really needed until her blessed heart was content.

Apparently, my new home away from home wasn't going to be any different.

Sitting down in the overly priced and highly unnecessary dining room chair, I dialed in my parents' home number before putting the phone up to my ear.

My mother answered on the second ring without even saying hello.

"Did you get there all right?"

"I'm calling you, aren't I?" I asked sweetly, leaning on the equally overly priced dining room table to bury my free hand in my messy hair.

"You could still be stuck in California," she countered. "Everything's okay?"

"Everything's fine," I smiled, rubbing my tired eyes.

"Have you gotten food?"

"I just walked in the door, mom. I'll go shopping later tomorrow."

"What are you going to eat tonight?"

"I've already gotten a note from Bella telling me that I'm invited over as soon as I get settled."

I looked over at the doorway, seeing the note carelessly thrown to the floor in my haste to be inside of an actual house as opposed to a plane or a car for the first time that day.

"Oh!" I could hear the smile in her voice and rolled my eyes, shaking my head. "Well then, I won't keep you!"

"Mom, please…" I begged, sighing heavily.

Ever since she'd met Bella that fateful day of the furniture shopping incident, she'd been hell bent on trying to get us together. It didn't matter that she was already in a relationship with a guy that could probably snap my neck in two seconds flat; Esme Cullen thought that Bella Swan was made for me.

And while I found her very attractive and enjoyed her company every time I was here, I was very well aware of Jacob and did my absolute best not to see Bella as anything more than a friend.

"Bye, dear! I love you!" she chirped before the line went dead in my ear.

Rolling my eyes, I switched off the phone and yawned, shaking my head as I lifted my suddenly tired body out of the chair to place the phone back in its cradle.

Rubbing my eyes when my hands were free, I stretched once again before walking back into the living room and grabbing the bags from the doorway to drag them through the house and up the stairs to my bedroom.

Grabbing my shower necessities from the very bottom of the second bag I looked in, I grumbled about Alice purposely hiding whatever I needed in the last place I looked and headed across the hall and into the bathroom.

I should've opened some windows and let the glorious, freezing cold air into the house to air it out. I should've unpacked all my clothes from my bags like Alice had made me promise that I would. I should've made a pot of coffee or gone into town to grab a bottle of wine for Bella and Jacob like I always did. Hell, I should've gone grocery shopping so that I wouldn't be eating stale crackers tomorrow for breakfast.

Instead, I reached over and flicked the knob on the bathtub to the hottest setting I could manage before getting undressed and stepping into the stream of scalding hot water.

I moaned in something close to ecstasy, throwing my head back as I braced my hands on the shower wall in front of me and closed my eyes.

There was almost nothing that rivaled an extremely hot shower in a quiet house that no one but those closest to me – and Bella and Jacob and a few slightly-nosy locals – knew about.

Perfect peace and serenity.

~*~

***Bella POV***

I watched as the telltale sleek silver rental Volvo pulled into the driveway across the street and wrapped my arms around my torso, biting my bottom lip as I continued to watch him get out of the car and stretch.

He'd called the night before, his sleepy voice slurring his words as he managed to get out that he'd be arriving sometime today.

I'd almost cringed at the thought of having to bring out the snow blower this year. The garage was a lot cleaner and clearer now, but it didn't mean that the damn thing had gotten any easier to maneuver out of it. It was still just as heavy and awkward as it had always been and I hated it with a passion.

But we had an agreement and I wasn't going to let something stupid like a few feet of snow discourage me from holding my end of the bargain. He came here to relax and get away from everything, not spend hours clearing the snow out of his driveway.

And the Edward Cullen that showed up on my porch every few months definitely needed that time to relax. The first night, he always shuffled his way over here with bags under his red, tired eyes and stayed for dinner no matter how much he probably just wanted to sleep.

The least I could do was to plow his driveway to make things a little easier on him.

It had been Jake's brilliant idea to give him a twelve pack of beer as a welcoming gift when he moved in. And the ass had stayed in the nice cool house while I suffered the heat and permanent embarrassment that went along with meeting someone new.

I really don't remember how I'd let him convince me that I was the one that needed to go over and meet the new neighbor. The new, famous neighbor that would probably just want me off of his front porch and out of his face.

I would've had to have been blind, deaf and a complete shut-in not to know who he was. Hell, I'd been practically drooling over him ever since he registered on Hollywood's radar a few months before. I never actually expected to be living in the same town as him.

And just as I was going to irrationally leave the cold beer sitting on his hot front porch, the door flung open and every coherent thought dissipated in that second.

The movie screen didn't do him justice. His oddly colored bronze hair stuck up in every which way, his vibrant green eyes stared me down as I stumbled over my name, and his voice all but turned my insides to mush when he invited me inside.

And some of the most obscene things ran through my head at that simple sentence that I felt my cheeks starting to burn in what I was sure was an almost impossible shade of red.

So I refused and then he grinned at me. I was almost positive that my heart had stopped beating for a minute at that.

I shoved the beer in his hands, he thanked me and then I all but flew back to the safety of my own home, berating myself and trying to get the image of his perfect jaw line out of my head.

Jake had been sitting on the couch, doubled over in laughter, watching the whole scene unfold in front of him from the wide front windows.

I'd refused to talk to him for the rest of the night. And it had almost worked, too. Then he'd gone and gotten me some of the most pathetic looking flowers from one of the two convenience stores downtown and I couldn't be mad at him anymore.

A few days had passed before Edward showed up on my porch this time, a bottle of my favorite red wine in his hands with an easy, lazy smile on his face.

It was a whole hell of a lot easier being face to face with him when he was over on my turf. Plus, having Jake sitting a few feet behind me helped keep the fantasies of what I really wanted to do to his jaw at bay.

We invited him to stay for dinner and he quickly agreed, getting comfortable with Jake in the dining room as I prepared the steak and offered my two cents into their conversation before we all moved into the back yard.

At the end of the night, I wasn't really sure what to think about him. I was half hoping that he was one of those stuck up, snobby actors that only thought about themselves so that my sudden fantasies would come to a screeching halt.

Instead, he was a good, down-to-earth, normal guy that merely wanted some peace and quiet in a secluded town where no one knew him. He never mentioned what he did for a living and neither of us prodded him about it.

And, naturally, the fantasies only got worse the more he talked and blended in with our small place in the world. The way he'd close his eyes as he took that first bite of steak, or the way he'd lick his lips when he was finished eating… hell, even the way he drank beer had my mind wandering off into places that it shouldn't have ever been.

_Especially_ when my boyfriend was sitting next to me with his hand on my knee, his thumb rubbing through the fabric of my jeans as he carried on a conversation about cars with Edward.

As much as I enjoyed Edward's company, I was kind of relieved when he came over to say goodbye to us at the end of the week. I could go back to living my life like I had been before I'd stupidly been roped into giving the new neighbor a twelve pack of beer.

That had been at the end of August and until February rolled around, I really hadn't given much thought to the new owner of the empty house across the street from my own.

And when he'd shown up on my doorstep again looking perplexed and really stressed out, I couldn't help but laugh at him as he pointed to the thick blanket of snow that had once upon a time been his driveway.

And after they'd gotten that taken care of and were sitting in my kitchen, his long fingers and wide hands wrapped tightly around my cheerful Santa Claus mug, we'd made the snowy driveway agreement.

He showed up on the porch on the first day he arrived in town and I invited him to dinner. That was our ritual and that was what we'd all come to expect from each other. He was a good person and he'd turned into a pretty damn good friend over the past year. I looked forward to seeing whatever rental car he was driving pull into the driveway.

Jake had caught on to me, causing a very large rift in our previously unharmed relationship. No matter how many times I told him that his insecurities were unfounded, he wouldn't believe me. He said that we seemed to have our own language; sharing jokes that he didn't understand or think were very funny while we were in hysterics over it, quickly being able to talk about everything that the two of us had never even touched on, and the way we apparently fell into a routine when our dinners were finished.

I'd never given much thought to all of that and had never even noticed that we'd managed to fashion a routine of gathering dishes, putting leftovers away and cleaning up the mess I'd made in absolute comfort until Jake had pointed it out.

Even when Edward left for months at a time, he accused me of sneaking away to call him to talk to him when he wasn't around. It was completely absurd because ever since he started thinking these things, he hadn't left my side for more than work, showers and using the bathroom.

Plus, I'd been pretty damn happy and content with Jake and mine's relationship. A few fantasies about a famous actor that just happened to move in next door didn't mean that I was going to immediately dump Jake and try to date Edward Cullen.

Not that it would've been possible, anyway. An ordinary girl like me didn't date men like him. It was laughable to even think about.

And we'd even started fighting over the dumbest things that he could think of. I left the bathroom door open while I was in the shower, I didn't kiss him goodnight, I somehow magically made one of our glass coffee mugs fall off the top shelf of the cabinet when I wasn't even home or I made him late to work because, naturally, I didn't have his coffee ready in the morning were just a few of the things we argued over. We were in a constant state of tension and ready to spring at the first sign of narrowed eyes from each other. My pretty much perfect relationship with Jake had fallen in around me because he was turning a phone call every few months into a full-fledged, non-existent affair.

It had finally gotten to be too much and when Edward's call came through yesterday night, Jake had called it quits with me and left. He hadn't wasted any time in taking the small things of his out of the house and disappearing late last night.

I'd tried calling him all day, but he never answered his cell phone and the line at his father's house was always conveniently busy.

To get my mind off of it, I'd trudged my way into the garage, pulled out the snow blower and made my way over to Edward's with it. I had greatly impressed myself when I finished his driveway in less than two hours and happily made my way back to my home.

But then I'd walked inside, checked to see if I'd missed any calls and my heart fell again when the answering machine wasn't blinking at me and the caller ID boldly said that I hadn't had any calls while I was outside.

Refusing to break the ritual just because Jake was being insecure and childish, I'd written a quick note to Edward, grabbed the shovel out of the garage and marched my way back to his house, quickly shoveling a path on his porch to his front door and taping the note to it in a rare moment of confidence before quickly sprinting back across the road before I could change my mind and rip the note off the door.

I think I was in shock. I hadn't even cried yet and that couldn't be normal, could it? I spent three years with Jake and yes, the fact that he'd left me hurt like a bitch, but shouldn't I be more upset over this? Shouldn't I be some sort of horrid mess, clutching a pillow to my chest and miserably crying and moaning into it? Shouldn't I be doing something more than watching my famous neighbor walk across his driveway?

And now, as I watched Edward pluck the note from the door and walk inside, I felt my stomach churning.

_Yes, inviting the neighbor that sent Jake into a jealous and unfounded rage over for your usual dinner was a __**great**__ idea, Bella._

I shook my head and stepped back from the window, running a hand through my hair and sluggishly walking into the kitchen to check on the homemade chicken soup I'd started to make after returning from Edward's.

But still, the tears didn't come. There was an ache in my chest, but no tears. No overwhelming need to break into sobs and pound my fists against something hard in hopes that I could break it to release the pent up anger and frustration I might or might not have built up inside of me.

Sighing heavily, I scrubbed my face with my hands and grabbed a coffee mug out of the cabinet.

Twenty minutes and two cups of coffee that I didn't want later, I heard the sound of his heavy footsteps on my porch, followed by the chiming of my doorbell.

Bracing myself and taking a deep breath, I rose from my spot at the dining room table and smoothed my shirt nervously as I walked toward the door.

With one more deep breath, I grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open, the deep breath I'd just taken catching in my throat as I looked at him.

It had started snowing again, and there were snowflakes stuck in his wet hair, stuck on his impossibly long eyelashes and melting quickly on his shoulders. His dark winter coat was wrapped snugly around his body and the bottoms of his jeans were already wet just from walking across the street.

He was grinning brightly at me even as his lips trembled with the cold air he was standing out in and his gorgeous green eyes were locked with mine.

God, the man never changes. Whatever it was out in California that froze its inhabitants in time was _really_ working out well for him.

"Bella!" he exclaimed happily, throwing his arms out and grabbing me up to hug me tightly.

I let out a strangled whimper, surprised at the sudden contact. The whole year we'd known each other there had never been more than a casual touch here and there while we were joking around with each other. There'd never been hugging and the jolt of electricity I felt when his hand touched my bare arm shocked me.

"You're a sight for sore eyes," he laughed into my shoulder before releasing me and grinning down at me. "How are you?"

"Uh…" I stuttered, quickly grabbing the edge of the door to keep myself upright, "I'm… okay."

The bright smile he'd had on his lips fell a little and he raised his eyebrows at me, rubbing his hands together.

"Come in!" I said quickly, moving out of the way and giving me an even better excuse to grip the door a little tighter as I waited for him. "It's really cold out."

"I'm not used to it yet," he laughed, stepping up into the living room and quickly shedding his coat.

He waited for me to close the door before comfortably hanging it up on the closet door next to me, his nose in the air as he sniffed loudly.

"Hungry?" I laughed softly, shaking my head as I spared one more glance out the window.

No Jake.

"Starving," he cemented the statement, rubbing his stomach. "I didn't bring any wine this time, though."

I waved him off, shaking my head again as I took the lead and walked into the kitchen to grab two bowls out of the cabinet above the stove.

"I think I still have some from the last time you were here. You want some?"

"I'm on it!" he exclaimed, holding his hands up above him as he opened the refrigerator and searched around on the shelves before finally pulling the half full bottle from the bottom and holding it up to inspect it. "Have you two had _any_ while I was gone?"

I smirked and shook my head, spooning soup into the bowls carefully.

"Where is Jake anyway?" he asked casually, grabbing three wine glasses from the cabinet next to the refrigerator and setting them on the counter. "His car isn't here. Did you finally clean out the garage?"

We'd been talking about how big of a job cleaning out the cluttered garage would be for us one day. Jake's obsession with motorcycles, dirt bikes and huge broken bits and pieces of some sort of vehicle that he was positive he could fix littered every inch of the cold garage floor and we'd _never_ been able to fit an actual car into it.

My heart twisted and I took a deep breath, biting my bottom lip as I thought carefully about how to word where Jake really was. Truthfully, even I didn't really know. Just because his father's phone was off the hook didn't mean that he was there. He had sisters and could've easily been staying with them. Billy could just be avoiding me, knowing that I'd call him looking for his son.

And yet, still no tears. Not even the stinging feeling in the end of my nose that indicated that they were on their way; nothing.

"I don't know," I said quietly, staring intently at the soup as I continued to spoon it into the bowls.

He was quiet and I didn't even hear him pouring the wine at this point. I could, however, feel his eyes staring holes in the back of my head.

"Bella, is everything okay?"

The concern in his voice could've killed me. In fact, I almost wished that it would've. There was no way that I could actually tell Edward the reasoning for why Jake left me. It was embarrassing on so many counts that I might as well start digging a hole for myself to live in right now.

Both bowls full of soup, I placed them on the counter next to the stove and turned around to face him, licking my lips.

"Jake and I are no longer together," I said quietly. "Things weren't working out anymore and he…" I crossed my arms uncomfortably over my chest and looked down at my feet. "He left last night."

I continued to stare at the floor as I heard him approaching and bit my bottom lip as I saw his feet enter my field of vision.

"Bella, I'm so sorry."

I looked up at him and licked my lips, shaking my head as I laughed nervously at him.

"It's not your fault."

At least, not entirely and not knowingly.

"That's not the point. Did you want to do this another time? I'm here for another three weeks."

"No!" I said quickly, shaking my head. "I can't think about it anymore."

I offered him a pathetic laugh and shrugged easily.

I wasn't really lying. I couldn't think about how I barely felt more than an ache for the man I'd spent three years of my life with without trying to pull my hair out of my head by its roots.

Edward, the source of all the issues I was currently dealing with, was a welcomed distraction that I wouldn't send away from me even if my life depended on it.

"Are you sure?"

I nodded, jerking my chin in the direction of the wine and glasses. "I've got soup and wine so let's try to enjoy the rest of the night, okay? Tell me about what you've been up to."

He narrowed his eyes at me slightly before slowly nodding and turning around to go back to the wine. I huffed out a breath and turned to grab the bowls of soup, carefully balancing them in my hands as I slowly walked into the dining room and set them down on the table.

I'd been looking forward to seeing my _friend_ since he called last night and I was not going to let Jake ruin that tonight.

"Wait." I turned, finding him standing in the doorway of the kitchen with the two glasses of wine in his hands and his perfectly arched eyebrows raised in my direction. "Three weeks?"

He grinned and nodded enthusiastically, handing me my glass before taking a sip of his own.

"I'm taking some time off. It's my Christmas present to myself."

I laughed and nodded, holding up my glass and tapping it against his. "Merry Christmas, Edward."

He grinned at me again before sitting down at the table and licking his lips at the sight of the soup in front of him.

I laughed and sat down across from him, setting my wine glass down and grabbing my spoon, watching as he did the same and quickly scooped the soup up.

I smiled softly and shook my head, sighing slightly as I dipped my spoon into the soup.

So I no longer had a boyfriend. But I had my friend and as he sat across from me at the table, his melodic voice telling me about anything and everything that he'd been up to since February of this year in between spoonfuls of soup, I really didn't think to want for anything more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Huge thanks to the reviewers. I love reading what you think about this.**

**~*~**

***Edward***

I sat in my lavishly furnished living room, my feet propped on the Queen Anne coffee table I really didn't appreciate for what it was worth and a steaming mug of coffee held tightly in my hands, sighing heavily and smiling contentedly. Leaning my head back against the Queen Anne sofa, I closed my eyes and tapped my grandfather's black onyx ring against the mug as I listened to absolutely nothing.

The cabin was quiet. The streets were quiet. Everything around me was absolutely quiet and I don't think that I'd been this content since February when I visited last.

My cell phone wasn't ringing with the slightly annoying – albeit highly amusing at times – fans that had managed to find my real number and call, giggling just to hang up when I said hello. The fax machine that my agent had insisted I needed and still couldn't figure out wasn't printing out a mile long list of what I needed to get done before the next movie I'd signed on to started filming. The computer wasn't beeping at me to alert me that I'd gotten a new email message or a reminder that I needed to tend to immediately.

There was nothing but my steady breathing and the distant humming of my refrigerator in the next room, relaxing me and letting me breathe evenly without worrying about what I might've been missing.

It was like being in a completely different universe.

When I'd first arrived after buying the house, there had been a few people that had approached me asking for autographs or looking to see if there was anything they could help me with.

And I was pretty sure that their "anything" and my "anything" were two completely different things.

And in all honesty, I didn't really _want_ anything. I'd tried dating a celebrity and that only managed to piss the both of us off when our egos got a little too big for our apartments to fill. I'd tried dating the non-famous girls and only ended up frustrated when they called me screaming about the new cover of some stupid tabloid, declaring that I was dating the newest actress in Hollywood. I only ended up with a very large migraine and had decided a few months ago that it wasn't worth it. I'd gladly spend the rest of my acting career single, waiting for retirement before I found someone I could even _think_ about settling down with.

For the most part, though, everyone in this town was laid back and casual about me being here. I'd never had anyone camping out in my front lawn, waiting for me to come out in hopes that they'd capture my interest and be my next… whatever it was they thought I wanted.

I could go to the Cumberland Farms downtown when I ran out of milk or bread or to get a bag of potato chips that I'd been craving without being gawked at. There weren't any cameras shoved into my face with people yelling my name to get me to look up and I didn't have to hang out the side of my car window to make sure I wouldn't be running anyone over when I backed out of my parking space.

By the end of the three weeks, I'm sure I'd never want to leave to go back to all of that. This was the longest I'd been able to stay here and I wanted to enjoy every single minute of it.

I had plans to do absolutely nothing and I was determined to follow through with them.

Lifting my head up, I opened my eyes and raised the mug to my lips, smiling as the coffee easily slid down my throat.

Even drinking coffee was like a new experience. I was usually rushing and trying to choke down some sort of food and my coffee before making my way out the door in the morning that it barely registered what I'd shoved down my throat before it was gone. The coffee could've been burned, I could've been eating a three month old bagel and I wouldn't have known the difference.

Being able to sit back and actually taste the coffee I'd poured five minutes ago was one of life's little miracles.

And then someone knocked on my door and I sighed heavily before lowering my feet to the ground and setting my mug on the coffee table.

I knew it wouldn't last long, but had hoped differently.

There was only one person that had ever knocked on my door and although I couldn't fault her for it, having to get up from my almost comatose state on the comfortable couch really didn't appeal to me.

Running my hands through my hair, I reached the front door and pulled it open, expecting to see Bella standing on the other side of it.

Instead I saw nothing but the railing to my porch and the trees surrounding my little piece of property. Blinking slowly, I looked behind me as if someone would magically appear in the doorway leading to the dining room, jumping up and down gleefully clapping their hands and laughing at me to declare that they'd just pulled one of the most interesting pranks on me. Still seeing no one, I looked back out and down, seeing that nothing had been left on the doorstep, either.

Maybe the peace and quiet was getting to me after the whole day I'd spent there with no necessary noise and I was losing my mind.

Shaking my head, I raised one hand to run it through my hair again before stepping back and starting to close the door.

A piece of white paper flashed in my vision and I yanked the door open again to see Bella's slightly messy handwriting.

Smirking at it, I grabbed it from the door and stepped onto the porch in enough time to see her front door slamming shut. Chuckling softly, I stepped back into the house and closed the door behind me, looking down at the note.

_Edward,_

_Wanna join me for lunch?_

_Bella_

Why she thought she couldn't have just stood there and asked me this question to my face was puzzling. I hadn't wanted to be bothered, no, but there was no need for her to tape notes to my door and run away as if I might bite her for interrupting my silence.

Laughing, I walked into the dining room and grabbed the phone to search through the programmed directory. Finding her number, I pressed the 'ON' button and cradled the phone in between my neck and shoulder, crumpling the note in my hand and walking back into the living room to grab my mug as I listened to the line ring.

"Hello?" she asked timidly.

I laughed again, walking into the kitchen and leaning against the sink as I dumped the coffee out.

"You could've stuck around, you know."

"I don't want to bother you. You can say no!" she said quickly. "I just thought that... I don't know… maybe…"

"Bella…" I started, shaking my head as I suppressed laughter and started cleaning out my mug.

"You don't have to come! Really, it's not a big deal if you don't want to. I have today off and I'm just…"

"Bored?" I guessed when she trailed off, setting the mug in the drainer before grabbing the phone and bracing one hand against the counter.

"Yeah, something like that, I guess," she muttered, huffing. "But you don't have to! I just thought that maybe you'd like to eat something of substance."

I turned and eyed my refrigerator, knowing that there was nothing but bottled water in there at the moment. I did plan on going to the grocery store sometime today, but it hadn't been a top priority until I started to get hungry later on.

Shaking my head, I walked out of the kitchen and back into the living room to push aside the white curtains on the front window and look over at her house.

Jacob's car was still gone, leading me to believe that she hadn't been able to get a hold of him like I had assumed she'd been trying to do.

Of course they'd get back together. They were always so happy with each other when I'd seen them; the idea of them breaking up for good didn't really make sense in my mind.

It didn't stop the slight flutter that I felt creep up my spine when she'd told me that they'd broken up last night, but it never entered my mind that they wouldn't be back together within the week.

And I'd chose not to dwell on that stupid flutter because a relationship between Bella and I was complete nonsense. I wasn't here all the time, she was with Jacob and it just didn't make any damn sense.

Plus, it would probably just cause unnecessary drama between the two of us and I valued her friendship entirely too much to ruin it on something as foolish as a relationship.

"Edward?"

Bella's voice snapped me out of the thoughts running through my mind and I shook my head, taking a deep breath and letting the curtain fall back to its original spot.

"Really," she laughed nervously, "it's not a big deal. Maybe another time."

I had my mouth open and the response ready on my tongue before I heard the click in my ear, signifying that she'd hung up on me.

I snapped my mouth shut, bringing the phone from my ear and staring down at it as I slowly turned it off.

That was the second time a female had hung up on me in two days. I can't say that I enjoyed it.

Shaking my head, I walked back into the dining room and placed the phone on its cradle before grumbling about how I managed to be surrounded by moody women and grabbing my boots from the bottom of the stairs.

By the time I had them on and was pulling my coat over my arms as I stepped out of the house, I watched as Bella's truck took off down the road and my shoulders fell.

Maybe I never should've gotten out of bed this morning. I hadn't wanted to, in all honesty, and I was really beginning to think that I should just go back to it. I had no reason to be up and about, there was no pressing need to see anyone for the next three weeks and there would be absolutely no harm done if I shed my clothes and crawled back underneath the warm cotton sheets to sleep the rest of my day away.

Clucking my tongue, I hastily ran my hands through my hair before stepping back into the house and shedding my coat, dropping it in the rocking chair by the door.

I'd just be picking it back up when she returned from wherever it was that she suddenly needed to disappear to.

Grumbling again, I dragged the rocking chair to the front windows and flicked the curtain back on its rod before plopping onto my coat and staring intently out the window.

She couldn't have been going very far for very long. As far as I knew, Bella liked to cook her meals more than she liked to eat out and she probably had something on the stove or in the oven when she'd decided to tape the note to my door. Logically, there was no way that she could be gone for very long.

I could've been doing anything else. I could've still been drinking that coffee I'd dumped down the drain for some unfathomable reason and enjoying the silence that engulfed my escape. I could've been watching mindless soap operas just because I'd never really had the chance to before.

Instead, I sat in a wooden rocking chair, looking out my front windows and waiting for my highly skittish neighbor to return home so that I could take her up on her request for lunch.

I should've just said yes. There was absolutely no reason for me not to have said yes and gone over there without calling her. There was no reason for my hesitation as I stared out the window at the cabin identical to mine because I was always up for a meal that Bella had prepared.

Plus, I'd be sitting with her in comfortable silence much like I'd been doing before she called. There had never been a reason for us to fill a silence with meaningless chatter when we were just as comfortable not saying anything. That was the way we worked and I liked it that way.

I spent most of my days trying _not_ to say something stupid to the wrong person and having it land on the front page of some sleazy newspaper, taken completely out of context and blowing things way out of proportion that not having to say anything at all while in the company of someone I considered real was like heaven.

She never asked about my career and I only offered her bits and pieces if it couldn't be avoided. She didn't treat me any differently than she treated anyone else and I never expected her to. When I was here and when I was with her, I wasn't Edward Cullen the actor. I was Edward Cullen the person and that was exactly what I'd been aiming for when I bought the house.

Granted, I hadn't counted on becoming close with one of my neighbors, but it was an added bonus. She wasn't nosy and she never pried or fished for information on other celebrities I'd met and associated with.

I leaned forward when I heard a car rumbling up the street, standing up and grabbing my coat before I realized that it wasn't Bella's truck that had pulled into the driveway across from mine.

It was Jacob's restored Volkswagen Rabbit that I'd heard and my eyebrows drew together on their own accord.

Okay, so he'd come home and they'd work things out like I knew they would. Whatever had happened between them was merely a bump in the road; normal couples had those every once in a great while.

And she hadn't been too horribly upset last night when she told me about it. Sad, yes, but she wasn't falling apart at the seams like most of the girls I'd known had done when they'd been dumped by their significant other.

So why did I feel so damn disappointed at the sight of his car parked in the driveway like it should've been last night? It was an irrational feeling; hadn't I already told myself that Bella was nothing more than a friend to me and that she actually belonged with Jacob?

He was a much better choice for her. I was too much of a risk and my lifestyle obviously wasn't something that would suit her. She deserved stability and normalcy – two things of which I would not be able to give her even if I'd wanted to.

Which I didn't.

Dropping my coat back into the rocking chair, I sat down on top of it and leaned forward, watching as he climbed out of the car and angrily slammed the door behind him.

I sat up a little straighter upon hearing it and propped my chin on the ledge of the window, watching intently as he paced back and forth across the melting ice in the driveway.

His long black hair was pulled back into a low ponytail at the back of his neck and his hands were clenched into fists at his sides as he stalked back and forth impatiently.

I'd never seen him acting this way before. He'd always been so easy going and friendly each time I'd been here that seeing him tense, jumpy and just plain pissed off triggered something.

My hands balled into fists as they rested on my knees and my eyes narrowed as I watched his jaw move up and down, obviously talking to himself. He'd glance at my house every few seconds, his own eyes narrowed before he looked away and continued his irritated pacing.

He looked like he wanted to hit something. And if that something was Bella…

I sucked in a deep breath, my nostrils flaring slightly as I rigidly stood up, my back ramrod straight and my whole body tense.

I heard Bella's truck sputtering its way back up the road and quickly grabbed my coat, slinging it over my shoulders but standing still as I watched her pull into the driveway again.

Well, at least I'd been right that she wouldn't be gone long.

I slightly wished that I'd been wrong. I didn't want her near him when he was acting this way. He looked like he was going to snap and no matter how quickly I could move when I really needed to, I knew that if he hurt her I'd never get there in time to stop him from doing it.

And it wasn't like I could just walk out on my front porch, blatantly stare and listen to them arguing – because that was all they'd be doing with the way I'd been watching him pace – and expect to be unnoticed. There wasn't even a good excuse that I could use to get outside. My driveway was clear, there was a clear path to my front door and there was nothing out there that I could pretend to be busy with.

I was trapped inside what had been my escape a mere two minutes ago, wanting nothing more than to be across the street and shielding Bella from Jacob's apparent wrath.

So I stood by the windows, watching as she climbed out of the truck and cautiously walked around to the front of it, effectively blocking my view of her.

I cursed under my breath, all but pressing myself up against the windows in a sad attempt to see her.

When that didn't work, I pressed my lips together in a tight line and focused on Jacob standing in the space between his car and her truck. And then I actually _heard_ him and if possible, my eyes narrowed even more.

"_What the hell is there to talk about, Bella? I can't do this anymore!"_

Her response was muffled and I cursed the fact that she wasn't yelling back. Hell, _I_ wanted to yell back and I didn't even know what had made him break it off with her.

Aside from the fact that he obviously didn't like perfection.

Shaking my head at the direction my thoughts were suddenly taking, I listened intently to hear the rest of Jacob's side of the argument.

"_I don't fucking believe that! There's no fucking way that you don't talk to him when he's gone off to wherever it is that he goes to! You two are way too close for it not to be happening!"_

What the hell was he talking about and why did it suddenly seem like I was a very big part of the whole mess?

"_Don't tell me that I'm making shit up, Bella! Look at the facts! You've never been that comfortable around another guy before! It took you damn near two years to even agree to go out with me! And you just so happen to feel comfortable around him when he's hardly here?"_

It was painfully obvious that I was in fact a very large part of what had happened between them, and as I stood watching Jacob's tan face turn red, I swallowed hard.

I'd come here to escape all the drama I seemed to create just by looking at another woman and it hadn't worked. I'd driven a very large wedge in between two people I'd considered friends just by… doing what they'd both asked of me.

I stared at my reflection in the window as Bella answered, her words still muffled due to the level of her voice and shook my head disbelievingly.

That really couldn't be the reason that he'd broken it off with her, could it? They were the ones that wanted me to call them during the winter months; why had it suddenly turned into a problem?

And what had he been talking about when he said that we were too close? I never heard from her or saw her after I left my driveway at the end of my stay so I didn't quite understand what might've made him believe that we'd been talking anytime after that.

"_What do you expect, Bella? What more do you-"_

And then I finally heard it; her voice rising in anger as she responded the way I'd wished her to.

"_What do I expect?"_ she all but screamed. _"I expect you to trust me! I expect you to know that I would never cheat on you because I love you! And if you can't trust me on something like that, then what the hell are we even trying to pull off here?"_

I pursed my lips and nodded, impressed. She had a very good point.

"_Of course I trust you! I don't trust __**him**__!"_

My brows pulled together again and I licked my lips, irritated. When had I ever given Jacob a reason not to trust me? It's not like I'd been sneaking into their house to watch them sleep or anything absurd like that. I'd never done anything untrustworthy to either of them so why the sudden hostility towards me?

"_That's a bull shit excuse and you know it! He's done nothing to deserve this!"_

"_Why are you defending him so much then? If there's nothing going on between the two of you, why are you defending him?"_

"_Because you're being an ass to someone who doesn't deserve it! I'm not cheating on you, you big dumb oaf! He's a friend!"_

Yeah, some friend I am. Friends don't cause this kind of turmoil in other's relationships; I wouldn't classify myself as any sort of friend either of them should even want in their lives.

Although, at this point – I watched Jacob's hands curl into fists and my own twitched as I sidestepped towards my front door – I was pretty sure that Jacob didn't want me in his life, or Bella's for that matter.

"_It's different for you and you know it! Your entire face lights up like a god damned Christmas tree when he shows up or calls and you have __**never**__ looked like that for someone you supposedly didn't know well!"_

"_Is it wrong for me to enjoy his company? He's one of the very few people in this damn town that won't start running his mouth if I tell him something personal!"_

"_You're telling him personal shit now? What have you told him about us, Bella? What does he know?"_

"_Up until last night, there wasn't anything to tell! You're driving yourself crazy with this, Jake, and I've had it!"_

"_What is that supposed to mean?"_

"_It means it's over!"_

"_No shit it's over, Bella! It was over last night! I only came over here because my father wants to use his phone without you calling in!"_

"_I only called him twice last night!"_

"_It was enough!"_

I watched as he began pacing again and finally saw Bella step into my line of vision, her over-sized purse clutched in her hands tightly and her cheeks red.

Her voice was softer again as I could see her lips moving, but couldn't hear any of the words I'd been hanging onto since she'd started yelling back at him.

Huffing, I stepped back in front of the windows and watched as he threw his hands in the air, let out a stream of curses directed towards my house and got back into his car.

I continued to watch with amusement as Bella raised her leg and kicked the front of his car once he was in and the car was started.

And then I wasn't so amused anymore when her other foot must've slipped on a patch of ice underneath her and she disappeared from my sight for a few painful moments while Jacob pulled out of the driveway.

Without letting myself think too much about what I was doing, I was out of my house and at the end of my driveway, looking cautiously down the road to see the back of Jacob's car disappear over the hill before I ran across the road and bent down in front of her.

She was clutching at her left ankle, her wallet and checkbook scattered on the ground around her from her fall, moaning and cursing slightly underneath her breath.

"Bella, are you all right?"

Her head snapped up and a little whimper escaped through her lips as her eyes connected with mine.

"This is one… I can't even… ugh!" she exclaimed, shaking her head as she lurched to the side to grab the items on the ground. "I just wanted a bag of popcorn."

I raised an eyebrow at her as she opened her purse and tilted it the right way to display a bag of un-popped microwave popcorn wrapped in cellophane before throwing her wallet and checkbook on top of it.

"I wanted my grilled cheese sandwich, I wanted to watch my movie and I wanted to eat popcorn," she continued to grumble, shaking her head as she slung her purse over her shoulder again. "But no, that just wasn't possible."

She braced her hands, palms down on the cold concrete beneath her and attempted to stand up.

The slight amusement that had returned as she outlined what she'd wanted to get accomplished that afternoon disappeared when she cried out and fell back onto her butt, her hands immediately going back to the ankle that she'd obviously twisted.

I quickly brushed her hands away and pushed up the leg of her jeans, gently taking her ankle into my hands and placing her foot in my lap.

I ignored a gentle, annoying tugging inside of my chest as I touched her soft skin, instead focusing on carefully putting pressure on her ankle to make sure that nothing was broken.

I'd watched my father tend to one of our swollen limbs or broken bones more times than I could count while I was growing up. It was easy to see that the only thing Bella needed to do was get into that house and stay in one spot for the rest of the day.

"This is nothing. Please, don't even worry about it. I'm perfectly capable of getting up."

I looked up at her from eyeing the slowly growing lump that used to be her ankle with a raised eyebrow. If that were the truth, she'd already be up and we both knew it.

She narrowed both of her eyes at me before brushing my hands away from her ankle and bracing her palms on the concrete once again.

"I could help you, you know."

She shook her head, scrunching her nose as she put the most pressure on her uninjured ankle and managed to hoist herself into a standing position. She bent her left knee, hopping over to her truck and leaning on the hood as she adjusted her purse on her shoulder again, her back to me.

And just when I expected her to start hopping her way to the front porch, she began tapping her nails against her truck's hood.

"How much did you hear?" she asked quietly, barely turning her head to look over her shoulder at me.

I reached up and uncomfortably cupped the back of my neck as I stared down at my feet.

"Of what?"

"Being dense doesn't work for you, Edward." She hopped on her right foot once, effectively turning herself so that she was now facing me. "How much did you hear?"

"All of it," I said meekly, dropping my hand to my side and hooking my thumbs into the pockets of my coat. "I was waiting for you to come home and I saw Jacob pull up…"

She nodded, closing her eyes and holding up her hand to stop me.

"I'm sorry."

My eyes widened and I shook my head, waiting for her to open her eyes and look at me again.

What was she apologizing to _me_ for? She hadn't done anything that called for forgiveness from me. If anything, it was the other way around.

Apparently, my mere presence in her life had caused a whole hell of a lot of trouble that I hadn't been able to think about. I should've, of course; I never managed to make anything but a movie scene even a slightly bit better.

"Bella," I said forcefully, stepping up in front of her and gently placing my hands on her shoulders.

She opened her eyes again and looked up at me, biting her bottom lip and sighing.

"You have nothing to apologize for."

"You heard him, Edward. Nothing he said was very complimentary or true."

"Well, if it wasn't true then it doesn't matter, does it?" I reasoned, smirking down at her.

"It was embarrassing."

I shrugged a shoulder, my smirk turning into a full fledged smile.

"It was no worse than reading about my underwear preference in a nationally published newspaper."

Her face flushed red before she laughed and shrugged, shaking her head. "Yeah, I guess that would be pretty embarrassing."

"You don't know the half of it." I looked behind her at the front door of her house. "Is that offer for lunch still good?"

Her eyes widened slightly again and I barely suppressed the urge to roll my eyes at her. I don't know why she always seemed so surprised when I said something about spending additional time with her. Who wouldn't want to spend time with her? She was, by far, one of the most interesting people I've ever met in my entire life.

Not one of the most colorful people I've ever met, but surely one of the most interesting.

"You really don't have to do that. I mean, it was just a whim and I…"

"I'm hungry," I finally interrupted her. "And the bottled water in my refrigerator isn't going to do anything to abate that feeling."

"I was only going to make a grilled cheese sandwich…"

"Bottled water, Bella. That's all I've got in that house." I moved a hand from her shoulder and jerked my thumb across the street. "A grilled cheese sandwich sounds pretty damn good."

She laughed nervously before nodding and turning on her good heel, causing my other hand to fall from her shoulder and slap against my thigh.

I watched the internal debate she seemed to be having with herself as she tilted her head from side to side, staring at the porch. She took a deep breath and I scooped her into my arms, grinning widely at her as she screamed.

"Edward!" she screeched, quickly wrapping her arms around my neck tightly. "Put me down right now!"

"You're not hopping on a sprained ankle when I'm perfectly capable of carrying you. Is the door unlocked?"

Without waiting for an answer and desperately trying to find a way to distract myself from the way she felt against me, I walked up the porch steps and bent down, twisting the doorknob and shoving it open when it turned easily in my occupied hands.

"Why ask if you aren't going to wait for an answer?"

"It's the polite thing to do."

She 'hm'-med at me as I set her down on the couch and quickly grabbed one of the throw pillows from the other end, propping her ankle up as she dropped her purse onto the floor next to her.

"How am I going to make lunch?"

"You're going to let me attempt to make a simple sandwich."

She eyed me, leaning over to rummage around in her purse, producing the wrapped popcorn bag and placing it in her lap.

"I can do it."

"You probably could," I agreed, shrugging out of my coat and walking over to close the front door and hang my coat on the closet door behind it. "But I'm not going to let you. Relax," I demanded, quickly turning around to see that she was shrugging out of her coat as well. "And don't get up until you smell smoke."

She pursed her lips, throwing her coat into the armchair next to her and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Comforting."

"Isn't it?" I grinned, snatching the popcorn off of her lap and quickly darting into the kitchen.

~*~

***Bella***

It was my only day off this week and I was spending it on the couch, my ankle propped up on a pillow, Edward banging things around in my kitchen and a fight with my now, official, ex-boyfriend ringing in my ears.

It was beyond mortifying that Edward had heard everything Jake had said. I'd been hoping to avoid that by dragging him into the house, but it obviously hadn't worked. He said he wasn't going to stay long and when I said that I just wanted to talk, he went off.

Moaning softly, I crossed my arms over my eyes and leaned my head back against the arm rest.

I'd been_ lonely_ when I cowardly taped that note to Edward's door and had just wanted some company. The house was too big and too empty and too quiet without Jake here – even if we were screaming at each other – and I wasn't used to it.

I stupidly figured that Edward – who was constantly surrounded by people screaming his name and asking him stupid pointless questions – would somehow feel the same.

I hadn't really thought that one through. So when he failed to give me an answer after a full five minutes of silence, I sputtered something, hung up on him and decided that I was destined to be alone today. So I grabbed my coat and purse and hopped in my truck to go downtown to see if there was anything that would keep me interested for the rest of the day.

Finding my way to the movie store, all I'd managed to find was a bag of popcorn. I had plenty of movies at home but no popcorn. So I grabbed a bag, slapped it on the counter, paid the whole dollar for it and got back into my truck to go home.

I hadn't expected to see Jake there waiting for me.

I still didn't understand what the hell made him think that I'd give up our stable, comfortable relationship for someone who was universally wanted by women fifteen times better than I was and lived across the damn country most of the time. I still don't know why he thought that I called Edward when he wasn't around or who he might've heard it from to cement that stupid idea into his head.

Certain people in this town were too damn nosy for their own good. And what wasn't fact, they made sure to make something up and sound convincing enough to anyone who would listen to their stupid ramblings.

And yet, there were still no tears for Jake.

Dropping my arms to my lap in frustration, I stared at the blank television and eyed the remote sitting on top of the DVD player on the oversized entertainment center Jake had insisted we needed six months ago.

Half of the shelves were empty, but oh yes, we most definitely needed it to take up half of the damn living room.

"Shit," I sighed heavily.

Leaning up, I tilted my head to the side and listened to hear sizzling sounds from the kitchen, indicating that Edward hadn't tried burning my house down yet and slowly maneuvered my injured leg to the floor.

Testing my ankle, I winced slightly when the pressure sent a shooting pain up my leg, digging my fingernails into the couch cushions I was gripping tightly.

Grinding my teeth together, I pushed myself up on my right leg and, as quietly as possible, hopped my way over to the entertainment center with the help of the couch to snatch the remote.

When I didn't hear more than the necessary movement in the kitchen from Edward, I huffed out a sigh of relief. The last thing I needed was to have him come running in here and trying to get me to lay back down. This had all been embarrassing enough; I didn't need the famous actor turned neighbor currently making me lunch to come back in here and find that I'd disobeyed his doctor-like orders.

Grabbing the edge of the television tightly in my hand, I hopped once more to my right and began to look through the movies neatly stacked on the shelf.

If Edward felt so inclined to stay for the movie portion of the highly exciting day I'd been having, then I might as well have one picked out at the very least.

Snatching _Sweeney Todd_ off the shelf, I opened it and quickly stuck it in the DVD player before hopping my way back to the couch and quickly plopping back into it.

"Did that make you feel any better?"

I jumped and a small shriek sounded out of my throat as he waltzed back into the living room with a sandwich bag full of ice in his hands and one of my kitchen towels draped over his shoulder.

"What?" I breathed, swallowing hard and trying to catch my breath.

"You're not as quiet as you think you are." He carefully set my foot back on the pillow before placing the towel on my ankle and the bag of ice on top of it. "Now, please, stay here."

I looked into his eyes and had to swallow hard again before nodding dumbly.

He looked so… concerned. Not even Jake had seemed that concerned about me whenever I'd managed to hurt myself somehow.

Granted, it happened more often than I'd really like it to but a certain level of concern from my own boyfriend would've been nice. I could've really managed to hurt myself during one of my less graceful moments and he would've still been sitting on the couch, the TV remote in his hand as he carelessly yelled to ask if I was okay without moving his eyes from the screen.

"Oh… okay."

"Do you mind if I stay for a while after we eat?" he asked, standing up straight.

_Hell, you could move in with me and I wouldn't even bat an eyelash._

"No. That's fine."

He nodded and grinned at me before turning and walking out of the room again.

"I'm almost done!" he called over his shoulder before he completely disappeared.

"Okay!" I called back, my voice shaky.

I covered my face with my hands and shook my head, closing my eyes tightly and moaning unhappily.

He was probably just sticking around to make sure that I didn't get up or hurt myself anymore. There were probably a million and one other things that he could've been doing and instead, he was at my house, making us grilled cheese sandwiches because I'd been dumb enough to kick Jake's car and hurt_ myself_.

_Brilliant, Bella. Abso-fucking-lutely brilliant._

And I'd gotten _so_ much satisfaction out of that stupid, insignificant movement, too. He adored that car and even though I hadn't done any damage to it, it still felt pretty good to kick it and know that it would piss him off just a little more.

Not that he needed the fire power to begin with, but it made me feel a little bit better about the whole absurd situation.

Then I'd slipped, twisted my ankle as I went down and the next thing I knew, Edward was crouched in front of me, his eyes wide and intent on my face as I sat on the cold, wet ground with my hands clutching my ankle.

Which meant that he heard it all. If he saw me fall, he heard everything that Jake and I had been screaming at each other and it only made me feel worse than I already had.

The man wanted peace and quiet and I'd been a very large part of disrupting that for him today. He wanted a quiet neighborhood to relax in and up until five minutes ago, he'd had that.

Groaning, I covered my face again and threw my head back into the pillows behind me as I heard him open and shut the microwave door.

I felt like an idiot. I never should've written that note. It didn't do me any good in the grand scheme of things and he was probably just annoyed at me.

But he was too damn polite and nice to ignore me like he rightfully should. He came here to get away from annoying people and nosy stalker-like fans I was sure surrounded him on a daily basis out in California.

And here I come, slipping and sliding my way into his life without stopping to even consider that he might just want me to leave him the hell alone.

All he wanted me to do was to snow blow his driveway when it snowed and feed him on his first night in town. There'd never been any mention of spending any additional time with him after that day unless _he_ showed up on _my_ doorstep.

"You don't have to stay if you don't want to!" I called out, dropping my hands to my lap again and sighing heavily.

I heard his heavy footsteps before he appeared in the doorway of the living room, a butter knife in one hand, his head tilted and his eyebrows drawn together as he stared at me.

"Why would I do anything that I didn't want to do?"

I blinked slowly at him and my lips started twitching. He looked so confused and slightly dumbfounded – coupled with the butter knife in his hand and his head tilted as if he were trying to figure out a complicated math problem, it was impossible not to laugh at him.

"What?" he asked, stepping completely into the living room and waving the knife around. "What are you laughing at?"

"You look ridiculous," I laughed, covering my mouth in a sad attempt to stop laughing.

He looked from me to the knife before smirking and meeting my eyes again, shrugging easily.

"This is what happens when I'm cooking. Now, why would I do anything that I didn't want to do?"

"I don't want you to feel like you have to stay here," I shrugged, sighing heavily as my laughter stopped rather abruptly and letting my hands fall back into my lap again. "I'm fine."

He pointedly glanced at my ankle and I rolled my eyes, throwing my hands in the air and huffing.

"Bella, if you want me to go, all you have to do is say so."

"No!" I said quickly.

Too quickly. And hoping that he wouldn't notice went out the window as soon as I saw his eyebrows shoot up.

I felt my face start to redden and wanted to bury myself in the couch cushions until the most embarrassing day of my life was finally over.

"Not unless you want to."

"And I don't." I looked up at him and he quickly nodded once, pointing the end of the knife at me. "So give me five more minutes and we'll have grilled cheese sandwiches, popcorn and some wine."

"That's a hell of a combination."

He shrugged, grinning crookedly at me and I stopped breathing. I forced myself to gulp in as much air as I could without drawing more attention to myself and waited for him to say something. Anything to get my mind off of how that smile affected everything about me.

"You picked it out. I'm just following the outline you've provided."

"I never said anything about wine."

"I improvised. You don't mind, do you?"

I shook my head and smiled. "No, I don't mind."

He nodded again before turning and walking back out of the living room.

The DVD menu was on the screen and as I listened to the popcorn popping in the microwave and the comforting sounds of sizzling in the kitchen, I didn't even let myself feel guilty that I wasn't more upset about the fight I'd just had with Jake.

That relationship was over and there was probably no way to make it right again. Then again, at this point, I wasn't sure that I even _wanted_ to make it right. The fact that Jake couldn't even trust me and would listen to the people in town as opposed to the girl he'd been living with for the past few years kind of made things a hell of a lot easier than I'd imagined.

I was more upset about the public display we'd given the whole rest of the neighborhood than I was about the ending of a relationship I previously hadn't seen myself living without.

Well, maybe not the neighborhood, per se, but Edward at least.

Pursing my lips and rubbing my eyes, I took a deep breath and tried my best to give myself a mental pep talk about not making an even bigger fool out of myself in front of Edward.

And then I rolled my eyes at myself because really, the thought of me _not_ doing something incredibly stupid to embarrass myself in front of him was damn near laughable.

I was a walking disaster and he made me slightly nervous and very anxious. It was very close to being one of America's Funniest Home Videos instead of my life.

And as he walked into the living room a few minutes later with one of my grandmother's old trays, brimming with the sandwiches, wine and a big ass bowl of popcorn, I was pretty sure this was all some practical joke someone had set up for me to deal with.

The loss of my boyfriend, my hot actor neighbor "friend" serving me lunch and taking care of me when I sprained my ankle, and my complete inability to find anything to say other than a stuttered "M-movie?" as I pointed to the TV screen just could _not_ be real.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Okay, so I'm really trying to hold out and keep to my Thursday posting schedule, but all of you that are reviewing this are making that incredibly hard.**

**Seriously, the way I smile at the computer screen would be enough to commit me.**

**So thank you for taking the time out to review and let me know what you think about this. I'm incredibly excited that so many of you are enjoying it like I am.**

**I also had to cut this chapter in half because Bella's POV was getting out of hand. I was running onto thirteen pages and not being anywhere near done.**

**Enjoy!**

~*~

***Edward***

I rubbed my jaw as I stared in at the four bottles of water lingering in my refrigerator.

I didn't even have milk. What respectable man didn't even have _milk_ in his refrigerator?

A man that had been eating every meal since arriving at his neighbors' house was a man that didn't have milk in his refrigerator.

I was planning on going yesterday to pick up what I needed, but with Jacob showing up and then having to help Bella around the house for the rest of the night, my plans for that had been shot.

Not that I'd really been all that opposed to helping her around the house. For the amount of effort that went into snow blowing my driveway and making me meals, it was nice to finally be able to help her with something.

We'd spent the rest of the day in her living room, barely watching the movie she'd picked out as we ate and talked.

It was nice having someone outside of my family and small circle of friends to actually _talk_ to. I didn't have to answer any embarrassing questions, I didn't have to put up a front to make sure I said everything just right for fear that it would be taken out of context and published in the next week's tabloid and I didn't have to pretend to be someone that everyone thought I was.

For once in longer than I cared to think about, I was myself. I laughed freely, I gave real answers and I spent time with someone that didn't treat me any differently than she'd treat a friend.

I wouldn't let her get up to do anything. I even helped her to the bathroom, waited in the hallway for her to open the door and escorted her back to the living room.

She found that highly embarrassing and had told me so many times on the return trip. I'd just rolled my eyes and had helped her back onto the couch, repositioning her foot on the pillow and replacing the then-melted ice before I sat down again.

I'd made dinner, following her instructions carefully as she sat on the step stool in the kitchen and when the lasagna was in the oven, hopped up onto the counter to face her and continue our conversation about what bands were worthy of our time.

We agreed on most of them and ended up in a heated debate about the ones we disagreed on.

It was like heaven.

There weren't many people I'd talked to lately that had disagreed with me. Something about pleasing me and wanting me to like them was what my brother, Emmett, had concluded one day and ever since then, I'd been watching out for it with everyone I talked to.

I'd found that there were a _lot_ of people that just wanted to agree with me for the sake of something to talk about. I'd get black coffee at Starbucks while home in California and the girl that would start talking to me in line – because there was always at least one - would get the same, declaring the sugar and cream only diluted the caffeine she so needed. But as soon as she thought I was out of sight, she was quick to walk back to the counter and ask for a massive amount of cream and sugar.

But Bella was all for disagreeing with me. If she didn't like something that I did, she was the first to tell me that I must be on some type of drug. She'd insult my choice of music or books or the indie movies that I loved so much and didn't think anything of it.

That should've pissed me off.

Instead, I grinned like an idiot at her, much like I'd done when she refused to come into my house upon first meeting me and quickly moved onto the next thing she probably wouldn't like.

I liked seeing the blush creep up her neck when she realized what she'd said and thought that it might have upset me. I liked watching her nervously play with her fingers when I just kept grinning at her like I was mentally challenged. I liked when her eyes lit up when we finally agreed on liking the same thing. I liked the way her voice took on a dream-like quality when she was remembering something that meant a lot to her.

I liked it all.

We didn't talk about Jacob or what had gone on that day. I'd seen the way her eyes had been clouded over when I'd rushed over to her earlier in the day and I honestly never wanted to see it again.

I couldn't understand what it was that had made him break it off with her. If he thought I was interested in her, it didn't make any damn sense to let her go if he loved her like I thought he did. He'd essentially paved the way for me if I ever wanted it and his logic of letting her go wasn't something I'd been able to wrap my mind around.

If I had Bella, I'd hold on as tightly as possible until she was the one that pushed me away. There was no way in hell that I'd ever let go of her willingly.

If I had her.

Which I didn't.

And I didn't want to.

Relationships and I never worked out and the friendship I currently had with Bella wasn't something I was willing to risk.

And as long as I kept telling myself that, I was sure that one day I'd finally agree with it.

Plus, it wasn't like she was even looking for another relationship so soon after Jacob had rudely walked out of her life. It wasn't like she was looking for a relationship with _me_.

It was smart of her, of course. I wasn't good for anyone. My lifestyle didn't exactly support a full-fledged relationship and Bella deserved someone that would put their whole heart and soul into something with her.

That wasn't me and on some level, we both knew that.

Sighing heavily, I ran a hand through my hair and closed the refrigerator door. Walking to the bottom of the stairs, I slid my boots on, grabbed my keys, wallet and cell phone off the dining room table and walked into the living room to shrug my coat on.

I hated grocery shopping. I hated it with a fiery passion and even though I'd known before I'd arrived that I needed to get there soon, I hadn't been looking forward to it.

There were always entirely too many people mulling around and gawking for me to find it even the least bit enjoyable. The local grocery stores in town were fine when I only needed a few things. Needing to fill the cabinets so that there weren't just spider webs greeting me when I opened them meant that I needed to drive all the way to Queensbury.

Being so far out in the middle of nowhere, it was a half an hour drive and since it was nearing noon as I stepped out of the house and into the freezing air, the town was going to be busier than all hell.

Lunch hour.

Looking forlornly at Bella's empty house, I sighed again before jogging down the stairs and unlocking the Volvo.

I knew she had to work today. She'd told me that she had to work early today when she finally kicked me out last night.

I hadn't been in any hurry and she hadn't _actually_ kicked me out. But when I'd spotted her yawning and struggling to keep her eyes open, I'd grudgingly stood up and told her that I'd better be getting home.

I had a long trip and all.

She'd laughed sleepily at me and before I could think to warn her, she'd stood up and walked over to the door.

"You heal fast, don't you?" I'd marveled, carefully watching her legs for any sign that she might be hiding the pain she was in.

"Huh? Oh." She'd looked down at her ankle before snapping her wide eyes to mine. "Oh!"

I'd laughed at her and thoughtlessly kissed her cheek once my coat was on and the door was open. Her face had flamed red and I'd quickly ducked out of the house, berating myself on my way across the street. I heard her quiet call of thanks behind me and had lifted my arm to wave at her without turning around before dashing into my house and flattening my back against the closed front door.

I spent about ten minutes with my back pressed against it, reasoning that it wasn't really anything more than a friendly peck on the cheek. It was thanks, really, for allowing me to invade her home for the entire day and arguing happily with me while I was there.

It was nothing more than that.

It _had to be_ nothing more than that.

Strapping the seat belt across my waist, I stuck the key in the ignition and backed out of my driveway, quickly accelerating once I was off the street and navigating my way to the grocery store I hated.

The half hour passed quickly – it also probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was breaking the speed limit by at least twenty miles an hour – before I pulled into an empty spot near the front of the building.

The closer to the exit, the easier it was to get all of my bags in the car and get out of the parking lot before too many people caused an uproar.

I hadn't really had that problem while here, but there was always a first time for everything. And Queensbury was a hell of a lot bigger than my small piece of serenity in Lake George; there were people _everywhere_.

And not all of them were as accepting as the ones in the small town I called home for a few weeks every year.

Stuffing my keys in my coat pocket and turning on my cell phone – just in case – I wrapped my coat tightly around my shoulders and stepped out of the car.

Taking a deep breath, I looked around the quiet parking lot and only noticed one brunette woman gawking at me as she stood at the trunk of her car, a full bag held in her hands as I walked closer to her.

I wanted to cringe.

I was no different than she was. Other than the fact that I had a job that made me famous, I was a regular person just like she was. I walked places, I ate the same food, and I used the bathroom just like she did.

Was there really any reason to stare at me like I had been dipped in gold?

"You're…" I heard her breathe as I walked by.

"Yes," I mumbled, smiling tightly at her over my shoulder as I passed. "I'm shopping."

Her mouth snapped shut and she blushed as she quickly went back to the task of filling her trunk with groceries.

Breathing out a small sigh of relief that the woman seemed to get it so easily, I quickly walked into the building and grabbed one of the green shopping carts before pushing through the automatic doors and looking around the bakery section of Price Chopper.

Taking a deep breath, I ducked my head slightly and leaned against the handle bar of the cart, maneuvering around people and fixtures as I picked up potatoes, bread, meat and cheese.

I hunched my shoulders as I passed people. They were staring at me unabashedly, their jaws hanging open and their eyes wide as I approached the aisle they were standing at the end of.

Some of them, like the busy twenty-something standing by the cream cheese freezer, ignored me completely as she argued on her cell phone while angrily throwing things into the cart at her side.

I wanted to kiss her.

And I suddenly missed Bella. It was random and completely out of left field, but I really wanted her at my side, talking to me and forcing me to ignore the rest of the people that were staring at me as I walked up and down the aisles in search of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

I wanted her to talk to me so that I could pretend just for a minute that I wasn't some sort of sideshow everyone in the supermarket was suddenly intent on making me out to be.

I grabbed the box of cereal I'd been looking for and threw it on top of the bagels I'd decided I wanted as I passed them.

And once I'd finally gotten everything I could possibly think that would keep me from visiting this place anytime in the next three weeks, I made my way up to the check out and stood behind a blonde that was flipping through a magazine.

I looked at the magazine rack next to her and cringed when I saw my face on the front page of Life & Style declaring that I was secretly dating Lindsay Lohan.

I moaned softly and briefly closed my eyes, shaking my head. I'd had lunch with her and her _girlfriend_ after meeting her one night at a club and suddenly, we were the new hot couple. They'd completely disregarded the second woman sitting in between us with their hands firmly twisted together as we waited in an awkward silence for our food to arrive.

I hated the paparazzi and magazine editors almost as much as I hated grocery shopping. Most of them had no common sense, only thriving on getting the latest gossip that wasn't even true most of the time.

The blonde looked behind her when she heard my moan and lazily turned back around before snapping her head back in my direction with wide eyes.

She slowly pointed to the magazine cover and then at me, her jaw starting to unhinge.

"Yes," I whispered, nodding slowly and running a hand through my hair. "That is me; I am him. One in the same."

"I didn't… I… You're…"

"Please," I whispered, pleading. "Please don't…"

Then she screamed and I dropped my head on the handle bar of my shopping cart as I groaned in earnest. I never really understood the need to scream when someone saw a celebrity right in front of them. Didn't they realize that it didn't accomplish anything but busting my eardrums and wanting to run away to hide in a very dark corner until everyone was gone?

I didn't bother to look up as someone ran over to us, asking what was wrong. I didn't even look up when more screams started sounding throughout the supermarket because it would only cause an even bigger scene to unfold.

Why a normal, thirty-something year old woman couldn't control her screaming vocal chords I will never understand. There was nothing about me that needed to be screamed at. I could hear her just fine when she was stuttering at me before and the screaming bit she was doing now was just annoying, unnecessary and embarrassing on so many different levels.

Maybe I'd find a plastic surgeon to totally reconstruct my face. Or maybe I'll cut off all my hair. Or maybe I'll never leave either of my homes ever again.

Yeah, the third option sounded like a really good one.

The jumbled screams and voices begging for me to look up became one big mass inside of my head. I hated crowds when I didn't need to be in one and even more than that, I hated that I couldn't make a simple trip to the grocery store without that one person ruining it for me.

I'd done this each time I'd arrived in Lake George and it had _never_ ended this way. I'd always managed to get out of the store relatively quickly and easily, never drawing much attention to myself because either people were too busy with their own lives or they didn't want to disturb me.

I took those people for granted, it seemed. I'd had it too good for too long and this blonde woman who was still screaming at the top of her lungs as she stood in front of me was hell bent on letting me know it.

Stepping back from my cart, I worked my way through the crowd that had gathered around me and ran outside, locating my car and looking over my shoulder to see that some people had even followed me.

This was madness. For Christ's sake, I just wanted to get some _food_.

Quickly getting into my car, I slammed the door shut and locked the doors, jamming the key into the ignition and taking off out of the parking lot before too many people could get too close to the car.

I bitched and yelled and grumbled my way back to Lake George, finally calming down when I reached the high school. Breathing deeply, I turned and drove down the road, spotting a familiar red truck parked on the side of the road with a familiar brunette running up the path to the only bookstore in the whole town with a mountain of books in her hands.

I smiled despite the way I was feeling and pulled up behind her, watching in my rearview mirrors to make sure that no one was going to take my door off if I opened it as I got out and leaned against the bed of her truck when she disappeared into the One More Time bookstore.

She would probably start to think that I was stalking her. It wasn't bad enough that I not only lived next to her, but had been watching her and spending time with her since I'd arrived two days ago.

Something that I didn't fully understand, either. I'd never felt that pull towards her that I'd felt yesterday before. I'd never found her popping into my head at inopportune times and wishing that she would be there with me when I went shopping. I'd never thought of Bella that way before now.

I blinked at the snow covered lawn in front of the bookstore and sharply shook my head.

I still wasn't thinking of her that way. Bella was the only person in this small town that I could consider a friend and that was it. Nothing more, nothing less; Bella was my friend.

Bella had just broken up with Jacob twenty-four hours ago. She _had_ to be nothing more than a friend to me because she still wasn't over Jacob.

She couldn't be.

"Edward?"

I jumped when I heard her voice and stood up straight, laughing nervously to myself.

"What are you doing here?"

She reached into the open door of the truck that I hadn't noticed before now and came back out with another stack of books.

"I attempted to go shopping," I sighed, absently taking the books from her arms. "It didn't work."

"What happened?" she asked, her voice concerned as she focused her attention completely on me.

I think I rather liked having her attention on me and me only. Add to the fact that she was actually listening and she really _was_ concerned about me, it almost made the whole shopping excursion worth it.

Almost… but not quite. I still had no food to bring back to my house and I was already pretty damn hungry.

"I attracted a lot more attention than I originally thought possible." Sighing again, I shook my head and jerked my chin towards the bookstore in a sad attempt to distract the both of us from the events of my day. "These going in there?"

_Of all the stupid things to ask, Edward…_

Of _course_ they were going in the bookstore. They were books. Books belonged in bookstores.

When did I become such an unobservant idiot while around her?

"Uh, you may not want to do that." She laughed nervously before trying to take the books from my hands again. "Your self-proclaimed biggest fan is sitting behind the counter."

I cringed and almost dropped all of the books before she grabbed them with ease.

It was absolutely amazing how she could easily grab a stack of unstable books from my hands without hurting herself, but had managed to twist her ankle while kicking her ex-boyfriend's car.

She was the biggest mystery I'd ever encountered.

"Oh."

She nodded, biting her bottom lip as she looked between me and the bookstore's front door.

Taking the hint, I nodded as well and stepped back from her, digging my toe awkwardly into the small mound of snow beside her truck.

"I was, uhm, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go to dinner with me tonight."

My eyes widened as the words spilled out of my mouth and I swallowed hard, wondering where in the hell _that_ had come from. I hadn't been thinking about it. It hadn't even been an option before now.

"What?" she asked, gaping at me.

"Uh," I mumbled, reaching up to run a hand through my hair and chuckle nervously.

This hadn't been a part of the plan. I came here to escape crowds and hole myself up in my little cabin in the middle of nowhere; not run head-first into a restaurant and cause yet another scene with Bella.

And oh, God, if they got _pictures_…

She'd be all over the magazine covers, questions shouted at her everywhere she went… she'd never be left alone ever again.

…All because of me.

I couldn't let that happen. Bella didn't deserve that. This was the lifestyle I'd chosen for myself and I was not going to subject someone like Bella to it if I didn't have to. She didn't deserve the scrutiny she'd be put under if they got pictures of her.

"Nevermind."

I quickly turned on my heel, playing nervously with my key ring as I stepped back onto the salt covered asphalt, looked up and down the road to make sure I wouldn't get hit before I opened the car door.

"Edward, I just… I already have plans!"

"Bella, it's fine."

I didn't even look at her as I sunk into the driver's seat and started the car, mumbling to myself that I was an ass.

A big one.

A big ass with no brains or balls whatsoever.

I didn't look at her again as I drove off down the road, turning onto our street and slamming my car into park once it was in the driveway.

Not much was working out for me the way I'd wanted it to today and I was seriously considering going back to bed. It was warm, comfortable and silent in there; nothing could really go wrong for me if I just stayed in one spot for the rest of the day.

Walking up the porch steps and through the front door, I threw everything that was in my pockets on the dining room table and toed off my shoes as I made my way up the stairs. I tore my shirt over my head, shed my pants and plopped face first onto my bed as soon as I walked into my bedroom.

And as I buried my way back into the sheets I'd abandoned this morning, I couldn't for the life of me get Bella's face out of my head.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**So… Bella had a lot to say and deal with in this chapter… Fourteen pages worth, to be exact.**

**Thanks to the reviewers! You guys make me sing. And trust me, no one in my household really enjoys that all that much so I try not to do it.**

**You broke me. Thanks so much!**

~*~

***Bella***

I gaped after Edward as he sped down the street, the pile of books in my hands teetering as I tried to crane my neck to follow his car even as he disappeared around the corner.

Did he just ask me out?

No, he couldn't have just asked me out.

That was insane.

Right?

There was nothing about me that could hold his interest for more than a few days at a time. There was absolutely no way that Edward Cullen had just asked me out to dinner… on a date.

Or maybe it wasn't meant to be a date at all. Maybe I was blowing all of it out of proportion and he just wanted a friendly meal.

I could do friendly. I'd been doing it with him for the past year.

But why had he taken off so quickly before I could really explain why I had to say no?

Huffing, I shook my head and turned around, heading back into the library and setting the books on top of the counter.

As much as I wanted to think about it and mull over it for the rest of the day, I had a ton of books that needed to be checked in, about an hour of paperwork for all of the books I was currently dragging in and another hour or so after that to make sure that everything had actually been done right.

"Bella."

I peered around one stack of books to see that Jessica Stanley – the bane of my existence – was sitting primly in the cushioned seat behind the front counter, her manicured fingernails poised over the ancient keyboard and her blood red lips pursed at me.

"Yes?" I asked sweetly.

I was her boss. I had to be nice. I had to pretend that the sound of her voice didn't grate on my nerves each time she opened her mouth. I had to pretend to like her because the last thing this bookstore needed was some sort of lawsuit that her father was so intent on handing out to anyone that "wronged" his baby girl.

Her previous ex-boyfriends had all ended up in jail for at least one night after they'd broken up with her over some of the dumbest traffic violations anyone could ever come up with.

Her father had this town absolutely wired and connected to protect his precious manipulating little daughter and no one had been able to get away with anything when it came to her.

I had no desire to lose the bookstore that had been in my family's possession for the better half of a decade because I gave her an attitude. She was not worth losing my livelihood over.

"I heard that Edward Cullen was here."

I wanted to roll my eyes. Oh, the urge was so great that it took a hell of a lot of willpower to simply close them and take a deep breath through my nose before I could answer her.

This was not the first time I'd had to field off her questions about my neighbor. She'd been one of the first ones in town to find out that he'd moved in next door to me and I'd had to literally get down on my knees and beg her not to bother him.

I'd gotten to know him a little bit by the time she'd found out and knew that the last thing he'd needed was to have a certain Jessica Stanley sitting on his front lawn in the skimpiest outfit she could possibly wear in a sad, pathetic attempt to charm him.

She'd agreed to leave him alone as long as she could have a paid vacation once every year. In turn, I'd had to give up my own vacation time to accommodate her and regretted it each time she came back from said vacation with a perfect tan.

There weren't any words to describe how badly I usually wanted to bash her face into her skull when she went on and on about how beautiful Cabo San Lucas was during the winter.

"Yeah," I said slowly, gritting my teeth together as my hands tightened around the edge of the counter.

"I was thinking that a week from now would be a good time for my vacation."

The smile she shot my way was deviously sweet and I had to grip the edge of the counter even tighter to keep from fulfilling the urge I suddenly had to leap across it and start strangling her.

"Sure, Jess," I said through my teeth, forcing myself to relax my fingertips. "That sounds fine."

She nodded, squaring her shoulders in a way that I knew well before she went back to typing in the book titles with her annoyingly loud and pointless fake nails.

Narrowing my eyes at her victorious, silent gloating, I turned on my heel and stalked back out into the freezing air, pulling my coat tightly around my body and grumbling curse words under my breath as I made it to my truck.

I'd been running the bookstore ever since my mother had gotten remarried and relocated to Florida with my new stepfather two years ago. It had seemed to be a perfect fit; I loved books, my mother wanted to fulfill her whimsical and romantic side of herself by being whisked away to a completely different state with the man she loved and I wanted to stay here.

I didn't particularly like the winters, but the summers were more than enough to keep me right where I was.

I'd bought the cabin as soon as the bookstore was in my grasp as a congratulatory gift to me. I'd worked hard to keep the library just as it had been when my great grandparents had started it and with the money I was now bringing in, it just seemed like a good idea to buy a permanent home.

Jake had moved in and at that time, I hadn't minded much. It made sense that he would; we'd been together for about a year at that time and the next step just logically seemed to be moving in together.

Now that he wanted to get all of his things out of there – and taking half of the things that we'd purchased together with him, no doubt – I regretted that decision.

He'd called even before I was out of bed that morning and had demanded that I make time to be there tonight so that we could sort through all of our belongings and finally get this part of our lives over and done with.

It stung that he referred to our relationship as just a simple 'part of our lives'. Like I was just a phase that he'd been going through and now that he was on to better, greener pastures, he wanted to be completely rid of me.

The past three years meant nothing to him.

And while I was struggling to find that piece of me that actually _wanted_ to grieve for him, I never actually thought of him as just a phase. He'd been such a huge part of my life for so long that hearing that he just wanted to get away from me stung more than I'd expected.

And while I knew that Jessica would be stealing my vacation time from me as soon as she found out that Edward was in town, I really hoped that she wouldn't. I hadn't been out of the state in more than a year and had really been hoping to get away for at least a few days this year. Even if that meant renting a hotel room out in Queensbury; at least it would be away from this town and the people in it for a few glorious days.

Sighing dejectedly, I grabbed the last stack of books from the floor of my truck before kicking the door shut and starting my way back to the bookstore.

This really hadn't been my day at all.

~*~

With file folders stacked on the floor in my living room, papers scattered all around me and a raging headache working just behind my eyes, I listened as Jake and his friends rummaged around upstairs, packing up his half of our lives and doing his best to get the hell out of the house.

I'd attempted to help them but had only gotten annoyed when none of them had listened to me.

We'd argued about the little things that our parents had given us as a couple, about pots and pans that he'd never use no matter how much he said that he would, about the couch that I'd picked out but he'd paid for, and lastly, about the stupid entertainment center.

Needless to say, my television and DVD player were now sitting on the floor and perfectly eye-level with me as I poured over the paperwork I hadn't gotten a chance to finish while I was at work because I no longer had a couch to sit on, either.

I could replace almost everything that he insisted he needed, so it wasn't really that big of a deal to me.

I'd officially given up arguing with him about taking whatever he wanted a few hours ago. It was pointless and all it did was add to the stress the rest of the day had unloaded on my shoulders.

I was pretty sure that I'd even watched Embry and Seth taking pieces of my bed out through the garage about an hour ago, but didn't have the energy to tell any of them that I'd been the one to pay for the damn iron monstrosity Jake had wanted so badly.

I had absolutely no idea where I was going to sleep tonight, but couldn't really find the strength to care much more about it. I had too much work to get done and the only thing Jake was succeeding in was pissing me off in a very large way.

So I stayed in the living room, cross-legged on the floor as I leaned over papers and tried my best to ignore the banging and crashing coming from my upstairs master bedroom.

I'd even stopped cringing whenever I heard one of the guys cursing and screaming down an apology from the top of the stairs. I didn't even really want to think about all the repairs I'd have to make when they were finally finished.

If I thought about it too much, I'd probably go up there and start trying to scratch their eyes out. With my short, stubby, bitten-down fingernails, no less.

It would not be a pretty sight and while I currently had no surface to sleep on tonight, I had no desire to sleep in a jail cell, either.

Two hours later when the words on the pages started to run together and all the crashing and banging had stopped echoing in my house, I looked up to see Jake standing awkwardly in the doorway of the living room.

"Finished?" I asked dryly, resting an elbow on my knees and rubbing my tired eyes.

"There's still some stuff in the garage that I can't fit right now. I'll let you know when I'm coming back."

"What? The bike won't fit around the bed?" I sighed heavily and waved him off, genuinely not interested in anything that he was already saying. "Give me the key and get out."

"It's on the table."

"Oh, you graciously left me the table, huh?" I looked up at him, rubbing my forehead and shaking my head. "How very kind of you."

He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his broad chest. "I'll call you when I have some free time."

"What if I'm not available?" I spat back, staring up at him from underneath my eyelashes.

"Then we'll figure it out when the time comes. Don't make this harder than it really needs to be, Bella."

"Don't you _dare_ patronize me, Jake."

He rolled his eyes again and I huffed out a deep breath through my nose, curling my hands into fists and bunching them on my knees.

"Get out," I said under my breath, breathing as evenly as possible as I stared down at the papers that I no longer intended to finish tonight. "I want you to leave."

"No problem. Tell your boyfriend I said hello," he snarled.

I snapped my head up to look at his retreating back and narrowed my eyes, grinding my teeth together.

He had absolutely no right to assume anything anymore. He'd given up that right the minute he declared that we were over.

He had no right to make assumptions about _Edward_. Even after spending all that time with him, Jake knew absolutely nothing about our neighbor.

Correction: _my_ neighbor. Jake no longer had any claim on anything that concerned me… including this street and the people on it.

I heard the three vehicles in the driveway back out and waited impatiently to hear the engines drown out as they drove down the road.

I sat where I was for a moment more, tapping my fingertips against my forehead as I took deep breaths in an attempt to calm myself down.

It took a few more minutes to realize that not only was the house now completely silent, but almost completely empty as well. The living room that I loved and had spent ages decorating specifically to my liking was almost stripped bare. I had a recliner that my father had given me when I moved out on my own, my television, DVD player and a very pathetic looking collection of movies littering the floor beside it and a few pictures from local photographers displayed on the white walls.

Carefully setting the folder I'd held in my lap on the floor beside the rest of the paperwork I hadn't gotten through, I lifted myself off the floor and slowly walked into the dining room and up the stairs.

Turning into my bedroom, I slumped against the door frame when I saw that I'd been right about Jake taking the bed. Where the king sized bed frame used to be was now just an empty space on the hardwood floors. My dresser was still there, but the empty space on the wall next to it clearly told me that he'd taken his as well. One of the bedside tables was missing, as well as a lamp that had been the match to the one that used to be on my side of the bed.

It was hard to have a side of the bed if I didn't even _have_ a bed any longer.

To add insult to injury, there were scuff marks on my perfect hardwood floors, a chunk of the wall that had had the headboard pressed against it was dented in and a very large portion of the closet doorframe was crooked.

Scoffing and running a hand through my hair, I shook my head before making my way back down the stairs and into the kitchen.

The scene that greeted me only made me take a few more deep breaths as I stepped over discarded pots, pans, towels and plastic containers on my way to the refrigerator.

My home resembled more of a successful robbery than my ex-boyfriend moving out.

And then my jaw nearly dropped to the floor when I opened the refrigerator door to find that I only had a can of coffee that I'd never drink and half a gallon of milk.

The anger I'd barely managed to tame immediately flared up again as I slammed the door, fisted my hands in my air and screamed as loudly as I could.

He took the food. The petty, selfish, arrogant, misinformed bastard that I'd claimed to love less than a week ago had quite literally taken _everything_ he could get his hands on.

I wanted to kill him all over again.

Not only was my house practically empty and all the food gone from my refrigerator, I was also starving. I hadn't realized it until I opened the damn refrigerator, but nonetheless I was still starving and lo and behold, I didn't have any damn food.

Irate, I kicked the refrigerator and hopped my way into the dining room when I only succeeded in stubbing my toe to grab the phone. I grabbed the menu for the only local pizzeria in town that had decent pizza – Rickie's – and dialed in the number, crossing my free arm over my chest as I waited for someone to pick up.

Walking into the living room, my gaze landed on the house across the street and I bit my bottom lip.

His kitchen light was on. He didn't have any food – and it finally dawned on me that that was probably the only reason he'd asked me out to dinner – but he was probably wandering around in his kitchen, looking for something edible anyway.

Finally getting someone on the other end of the line, I quickly ordered two large cheese pizzas and a dozen barbeque chicken wings before hanging up and crossing my arms over my chest.

I was an idiot for thinking that he'd asked me out on a date. He just wanted to eat and he probably wanted me to go with him so that people wouldn't approach him as quickly as they would if he were alone.

It was nothing more than that. There was safety in numbers and all he wanted to do was eat. No dates, no candle light dancing over his chiseled features as he sat across from me at a romantic restaurant, no whispered words over our main courses and definitely no goodnight kiss when the night came to a close.

Not a damn thing more than Edward wanting to actually eat.

Shaking my head and sighing heavily, I bent down and gathered all the files and papers from the floor, tapping them into place before picking them up and walking into the dining room to set them on the table.

I grabbed my keys and purse, slipping my boots on and grabbing my coat before I ran out of the house and quickly got into my cold truck, shivering as I stuck the key in the ignition and quickly backed out of my driveway.

I was on a mission. I wasn't sure if my mission would be accepted at all, but it was worth a try. The worst that could happen was that I'd get a door slammed in my face and I'd have to return to the cabin that I used to love being in.

Back when it was an actual home instead of an empty shell of a past relationship ruined by jealousy and a whole hell of a lot of miscommunication.

Gently tapping my hands on the center of the steering wheel as I pulled in to Cumberland Farms, I parked and sighed heavily, digging my wallet out of my purse before jumping out of my truck and walking into the convenience store that I hated.

The local high school kids thought that this was their home away from home and never failed in making lewd comments when anyone walked by them as they stood outside, leaning against the brick and smoking cigarettes they couldn't even buy themselves.

The clerks inside the store weren't any better, either.

And if they weren't the only ones in town that sold beer in twelve packs, I'd never step foot inside this place ever again.

I bypassed the high schoolers, keeping my head down as I yanked open the door and stepped inside the warm store.

"Bella!"

I cringed and slowly looked up to the counter, seeing Mike Newton standing behind it, licking his lips in a way he probably thought looked suggestive.

He looked like an ass.

"Hello, Mike," I mumbled, quickly walking to the coolers in the back and grabbing the twelve pack of Heineken.

I slowly walked up to the counter, both wanting to get the whole thing over and done with and wanting to prolong having to deal with Mike staring at my breasts as he rang me out.

Like he did with every female that walked into the store and was dumb enough to say hello to him.

Like I did every damn time I walked in and he was working.

Inwardly groaning and biting the inside of my cheek, I set my beer on the counter as I reached it.

"Having a party, Bella?" Mike asked, smirking at me as he scanned the bar code on the side of the carton.

"Just a quiet night at home," I sighed, fidgeting with my wallet as I stared intently at the small screen that had yet to display my total.

Could he go any slower? How long did it take for the scanner to capture the bar code?

I pulled my coat tighter around my chest when I caught his gaze wandering down that way and cleared my throat.

"Heard that you and Jake broke up," he said casually, shrugging one shoulder as the total finally popped up on the display.

I wanted to ask him how he'd heard about it so quickly after it had happened, but caught myself just as the question was about to leave my tongue. In a town this small with as many nosy people in it as there was, it was inevitable that the end of my relationship would be front page news for at least another week.

"Yeah. I'm a lesbian," I lied quickly, throwing a twenty dollar bill at him. "He didn't like that too much."

I watched with smug satisfaction as his jaw dropped, slowly taking the money from the spot on the counter where it had landed and punching it into the register.

"Really?"

I nodded, taking a deep breath and making myself meet his gaze. "I'm all for the ladies, Mike."

"Oh," he mumbled dejectedly as he counted back my change and handed it to me. "Well, have a nice night, Bella."

I stuffed the change in my wallet and grabbed the beer, nodding and cheerfully waving at him as I quickly walked out of the store.

"You too, Mike!"

It should've bothered me that that would be around town in a matter of minutes, but it didn't. It should've bothered me that Jake would probably hear it sometime tomorrow, but that didn't bother me, either.

Until someone set him straight, Mike Newton would not be bothering me when I walked into Cumberland Farms anymore and that fact just managed to lift my spirits a small fraction.

Gleefully setting the beer in the passenger side of my truck, I backed out of my parking space and drove across the street to Rickie's.

The one good thing about this town was that everything was in one little strip. There was a liquor store that carried only wine and hard liquor, the pizzeria, Sticks Pharmacy, Cumberland Farms, Stewart's, Mama's Old Fashioned Ice Cream Shop and T.J.'s Deli all lining both sides of the street.

Jumping out of the truck with my wallet in hand once again, I ran into the ridiculously small pizza shop, paid for my food and walked back out with it five minutes later.

Moving the beer from the seat to the floor, I placed the hot food on the seat and threw my wallet back in my purse before backing out of the parking lot and pulling back onto the main road.

The nerves started to kick in as I pulled onto my street. My hands involuntarily started to drum against the steering wheel and I started gnawing on my bottom lip as I drove up over the small hill leading to our homes.

He could close the door in my face. He could not even answer the door when I knocked. There were a number of things that he could do and everything I imagined never turned out very well for me.

He was probably so tired of seeing me by now. I'd seen him once a day since he'd arrived when usually, I barely see him at all during his stay. I was probably the last person he wanted to see right now and as I pulled into my driveway, I noticed that his kitchen light was still on.

Maybe he left it on and he fell asleep. Maybe he wasn't even awake right now. Just because it was barely seven at night didn't mean that he hadn't been exhausted and had fallen asleep without turning the lights out. He didn't have a regular job like most of this town did; I couldn't begin to imagine how little sleep he actually got while he was working.

I pulled into my driveway and stared at his house from my rear view mirror, my bottom lip still caught between my teeth as I continued to chew a layer of skin off of it.

The worst that could happen was that he wouldn't answer the door. And if he didn't answer the door, then I had at least three more days worth of food until I could get a chance to run to the grocery store.

Slowly getting out of the truck, I closed the door behind me and walked around to the other side to grab the food, beer and my purse in my hands all at once.

I eyed the distance between our houses and the lingering ice that was on both of our driveways before hitching my purse on my shoulder and balancing the food and beer in each hand.

I closed the door with my hip and slowly started the trek across the street, straining my eyes to look out for the ice that was dangerously lurking underneath my feet and waiting for the best time to make me slip and fall.

Maybe I should've written him a note and taped it to his door again. It was cowardly and pretty childish of me to do so, but it had seemed to work well in the past.

I leaped onto the porch, easily bypassing a patch of ice at the bottom of the stairs, proud of myself for not letting the ice attempt to kill me today and walked up to his front door, catching my bottom lip in between my teeth again.

It would be a miracle if I had a bottom lip left after tonight.

Taking a deep breath, I gently kicked the bottom of his door in lieu of knocking, straining to hear any movement inside as I shivered and waited impatiently out in the cold.

I kicked one more time when I failed to hear anything after a minute, pathetically hoping that he just didn't hear it the first time.

But when another minute had passed and I still didn't hear any movement behind the door, I sighed heavily and turned to walk back down the porch steps.

I eyed the ice glinting in the dim light of the overhead street lights and carefully stepped onto it, knowing that jumping over it again was signing my death certificate and almost immediately lost my footing to land squarely on my ass.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," I moaned as the chicken wings and pizza went flying out of my hands.

The beer landed next to me, my hand still gripping the top, but I was pretty sure that I heard a few bottles break.

And I wanted to cry. I just wanted to put my head between my knees and sob my little heart out because this entire day had been nothing but one big disappointment.

Instead, when I felt the tears start filling my eyes, I used the top of the beer pack to push myself back to my feet. Sniffling, I picked up the pizza boxes that had merely skidded across his driveway. The chicken wings, however, hadn't shared the same fate. The top of the white Styrofoam box had popped open and I could barely see that there were barbeque wings scattered all across the driveway.

Swiping at my cheeks as the tears I was trying so hard to get rid of spilled out, I carefully began kicking the ruined chicken wings into the road, sniffling pathetically as I did so.

God, I hoped that he was sleeping because if he walked out of his house and saw me like this, I'd never be able to look at him ever again.

Naturally, not even ten seconds later, I heard his door open behind me and barely bit back a sob as I quickly scooped up the half-full chicken wing box and held it tightly in my free hand.

I sure as hell hoped that whoever was running this chain of events I'd gotten myself into was amused.

"Bella?" he asked, his soft voice hanging in the air as I shuffled around his driveway with my head tilted as far away from him as possible.

And when I opened my mouth to try for some stupid joke that would dismiss my very odd behavior, nothing but a strangled sob made its way out.

I wanted to die.

Or at least find a very deep, very dark hole that I could hide in until he went back to California.

So I clapped one of my hands over my mouth and shook my head as I made my way over to the bottom of his stairs to get the beer.

"Bella, are you okay?"

And he was there. No warning; nothing until he was standing on the bottom step of his porch stairs, barefoot and without a coat as he grabbed the beer before I could.

"I'm fine," I squeaked, sniffling loudly as I stared at his bare feet.

"Are you hurt?"

My pride was pretty well damaged and my ass kind of stung, but other than that, I was just peachy.

"No," I squeaked again, shaking my head as I once again folded my bottom lip into my mouth.

Even his feet were attractive. Ugh, what was I thinking? He was my neighbor; my very famous, very attractive neighbor that had never looked at me as more than part of the couple that helped snow blow his driveway during the winter. Even thinking for one minute that I could register on his radar was complete lunacy.

"Bella."

And then my chin was in his hand and his eyes were boring into mine as he forced me to look at him.

"You are not okay."

"I was just…" I hiccupped and closed my eyes tightly, trying to brush his hand away. It didn't work. "You're hungry."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

He jerked my chin gently and I opened my eyes again, feeling even more humiliated that his motion caused a few more tears to trail down my cheeks.

"I just… I…"

Oh, God, it was never going to end, was it? I was stuttering and on the verge of sobbing and no matter how badly I wanted to say, "I was going to bring food over so that we could eat", it wasn't coming out at all.

"Breathe, Bella," he said softly, setting the beer back on the ground to frame my face with his hands.

His thumbs brushed away the tears on my cheeks as he stared into my eyes and I felt myself calming down minutely.

The embarrassment, however, flared up in full force and I felt my face burning as he just continued to stand there, looking ten drastically different shades of perfect with the backlight from his porch light illuminating all of him and his beautiful green eyes still looking into my boring brown ones.

"What are you doing here?" he asked softly.

"I can leave."

"I never said that I wanted you to leave. I just wanted to know what you were doing here… and why you were kicking chicken wings across the road."

Why would the world make me suffer this embarrassment, but fail to open up and swallow me whole when I couldn't deal with it anymore?

I'd have to move. There was no way that I could deal with seeing him when he visited without thinking about this exact moment and wanting to throw myself off a cliff.

"I haven't eaten and I don't have any food either," I said, my voice sounding strangled and garbled. "So I figured that I'd go and get something so we could…"

I swallowed hard. This sounded exactly as dumb as I thought it did. What had I been thinking? Honestly?

He wanted _peace and quiet_ and I hadn't been able to give that to him since he showed up. Hell, it probably looked like I was doing exactly what he'd come here to escape from; setting up camp on his front lawn despite the temperature outside.

I was a shitty neighbor. I was a horrible friend.

"Nevermind," I mumbled, feeling the tears building in the back of my throat again. "I'll just… I have…"

"What kind of pizza?"

I blinked at him, completely ignoring the tear that traveled down my cheek because of it.

"Excuse me?" I mumbled, my voice monotone.

"What kind of pizza did you get?" he asked softly, a small smile curling on his lips as he wiped away my tears again.

"You really don't…"

"If it's cheese, I'm dragging you into this house no matter what you say."

I nodded, finally giving in to the urge to lean my face against one of his palms as the small smile on his lips turned into a rather large grin that I wouldn't mind seeing every day for the rest of my life.

"Then what are we standing out here for?" he laughed, moving his hands from my face to bend down and grab the beer again.

I missed the feel of his hand on my face almost as soon as it was gone and sighed a little as I followed him back up the steps and into his house.

I closed the door behind me and looked around the living room, finally realizing that I had never actually been in his house. He'd always been over at mine and I'd never made it past his front porch.

I recognized most of the furniture that had been dragged into his house when his parents had come to visit and envied him of his couch. And the small, elegant black metal and glass TV stand sitting on the opposite side of the room. And the recliner that I knew was only a year old as compared to the twenty-something year-old faded blue monstrosity I had in my own living room.

"Some of those might be broken," I told him sheepishly as I followed him into the kitchen to set the pizza boxes and chicken wings on the stove top.

He slowly set them on the counter next to the sink, looking over at me with one of his eyebrows quirked up.

"Why?"

"They landed pretty hard when I fell," I mumbled, hastily opening the top pizza box to find that the pizza was actually _attached_ to the top of it.

Oh, just fucking perfect. I hadn't noticed that the box might have been upside down before I'd picked it up, but it obviously had been. I really don't know how I missed that or managed to turn it right side up without realizing it, but I guess crying and sniffling and trying to avoid my neighbor could've had a lot to do with that.

"That can't be good."

"I should just go," I mumbled, snapping the pizza back into the box and covering my face with my hands.

"What? Why?"

"I've been having a very, very bad day and that," I pointed at the pizza box, dropping my hands to my sides, "is _not_ making things better."

"If it makes you feel any better, I haven't had the greatest day, either." He ripped open the box of beer and grabbed two bottles, inspecting them both before handing one to me. "Tell me about it."

"You don't want to hear about it."

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to hear about it." He twisted the top off of his own beer bottle before setting it aside and poking through the rest of the bottles to assess the damage. "Let it out, Bella."

He didn't want me to do that. I'd be nothing but a puddle of stuttered words and pathetic tears on his kitchen floor if I did and really, neither of us needed to deal with that right now.

"It really…"

"Bella." He stopped poking around in the cardboard box on the counter and turned to face me, crossing his arms over his chest. "You brought me food. I'm absolutely _starving_. I have two shoulders and you're free to use them whenever you'd like. Tell me why your day was so bad."

"Only if you tell me about yours."

"Deal… but you first."

Sighing heavily, I twisted the top off of my beer and turned to throw the cap into the garbage next to the refrigerator before leaning back against the counter and watching as he went back to prodding around in the cardboard box of beer.

So I told him everything that had happened to me that day. From Jessica Stanley stealing my vacation time – conveniently leaving out the reason for it – to Jake coming in to destroy my bedroom and taking all of my decent furniture and food and ending with the mountain of paperwork that I had yet to get done.

He listened as if I was the most important thing in the world and I slowly felt all the tension and disappointment I'd had ten minutes earlier slipping away from me. I couldn't remember why I'd been crying in his driveway – something that he thankfully didn't mention as we stood there – and all of the day's events felt as though they'd happened ages ago.

It had been a really long time since I'd felt that way. Jake had been there for me to talk to, sure, but he never actually listened to anything I had to say. He'd ask questions in the right places and make the appropriate noises as he nodded his head, but if I asked him about it the next day, he wouldn't be able to remember any of it.

It was very nice to know that someone was actually listening to me and cared enough to even ask in the first place.

He'd picked out only two bottles that had small hairline cracks in them and stuck the rest of the box in his remarkably empty refrigerator before attacking the pizza boxes and heaping the slices on a very expensive white plate rimmed in gold. He ate an entire slice as I picked my pieces off of the top of the box and followed him into the living room, both of us collapsing onto the couch.

"What happened to you?" I asked, leaning my head back against the couch as I watched him devour two more pieces of pizza in about a minute.

I'd gotten the short version when I saw him earlier in the day, but I was pretty sure that there was a hell of a lot more to it. He'd distracted me too easily by trying to help me with the books I'd picked up from the old Warrensburg library that was closing and I hadn't gotten a chance to pry.

"Tried to go shopping," he mumbled around a mouthful. "And I was almost out of there before the woman in front of me noticed that I wasn't just a regular Joe and started screaming at the top of her lungs."

He rolled his eyes and licked his fingers of the grease that lingered there.

I found myself captivated by his tongue and lips as they wrapped around each fingertip and had to force myself to look into his eyes as he began talking again.

"Didn't take long for the rest of the damn store to realize that it wasn't just a spider she was freaking out about. I ran out of there as fast as I could and haven't left the house since I got here."

"That really sucks." I tipped my head back as I took a sip off of my beer bottle. "I'm sorry."

He shrugged one shoulder, biting off the end of another slice of pizza before looking up at me again.

"I just didn't expect it here, you know? It's never happened before and I guess I just thought that it would continue on that way." He rolled his eyes then, shaking his head. "It was stupid of me to think it wouldn't."

"It wasn't stupid. You come here to get away and leave all of that behind for a few days. You _deserve_ some time to yourself and it was very rude of them to take that away from you."

He stared at me, slowly licking a small spot of pizza sauce off the corner of his mouth – rendering me completely speechless and partially breathless for a second – before a smile started to take over.

"You are the first normal person that has ever seen it that way."

I felt my face starting to heat up and quickly picked up the last piece of pizza on my plate, hastily shoving the end of it into my mouth and avoiding his gaze.

"It's true," I mumbled, reaching down to pick at the fabric of my jeans. "I mean, you're probably even tired of me bothering you."

"You never bother me, Bella. I enjoy your company."

If I thought my face was red before, I was pretty damn positive that it was absolutely nothing compared to what it was now.

"You wanted a break from everything," I said quietly, setting the piece of pizza back on my plate.

"I've still got that. This time, I've had your company and it's made my stay just that much better. I enjoy spending time with you, Bella," he said again, his voice low and soft.

I looked up at him and swallowed hard, meeting his intense stare.

"I enjoy spending time with you, too," I whispered, clearing my throat and sitting up straight when I realized that we'd begun leaning in to each other.

Oh, Christ, _what_ was I _doing_? Leaning into him and whispering to him? That was a fantasy that would never bring itself to fruition, not something that would actually happen.

"I, uhm," I cleared my throat again, watching as he shifted on the other end of the couch. "I need to go grocery shopping, too so… did you want to… uhm," I laughed nervously, "do that together? Maybe?"

He just stared at me, his beyond perfect jaw moving as he continued to chew on the pizza he kept eating as I rambled.

I _really_ needed to stop doing that.

I _really_ needed to stop barging in on him and acting like a crazy person when I wanted to spend time with him.

Which was not going to be easy by any means.

"You could, uhm… wear a hat or something to hide? You know, from the people that can't control themselves?"

Why wasn't he _saying_ anything?

"Or you could," I swallowed hard, looking down at my leg and setting the half eaten slice of pizza I no longer wanted in between us on the couch, "give me a list and I could go for you? I mean, you're gonna need something to eat when I'm not home."

I wanted to smack myself. Like he was relying on me to feed him… right. I mentally scoffed. I was not that important in his life and I shouldn't let myself think that I was.

I was just as disposable as the next girl. I just happened to live next door to him; I was convenient and easy.

My face flushed again at that thought and I really did cover my face with one of my hands without thinking about my actions beforehand.

I wasn't _easy_. I was… accessible. Yes, that was a better word. Accessible.

"What are you thinking about?"

Oh, great, the most basic form of rejection; avoid the question altogether and ask something else.

"Nothing," I sighed heavily, shaking my head and closing my eyes tightly. "It's nothing."

"What time do you get out of work tomorrow?" he asked casually.

"Six, but I'm going out with some friends afterwards."

I picked at my jeans again, biting my bottom lip as I thought about the club Angela and Rosalie were going to drag me to.

Friday nights were our girls' night out and the only time we ever cancelled them was if the weather was bad. This Friday was merely going to be colder than hell, but at least there would be no snow.

This week we were headed to Saratoga and Caroline Street; lined with bars and night clubs and really sleazy, drunken men walking up and down as they shouted crude things after you when you ignored them.

If anything, I'd have a few drinks and be able to get this horrible conversation and rejection out of my head until I came home to deal with it all when I walked into my almost empty home.

"What about Saturday?"

"I work until four," I sighed, picking at a wayward string I'd managed to find on my jeans.

"Did you want to go then?"

My head snapped up and I couldn't stop the stupid wide grin that immediately spread across my face.

He hadn't rejected me after all.

My heart soared as I sat up straighter and nodded, reaching for my abandoned slice of pizza to bring it back into my lap.

"Yeah, okay."


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Before I post the next chapter, I have a question for all of you. Do you like the really long chapters or would you prefer that I shorten them?**

**I have a habit of describing things too much or making things too long, so I'd really love to know what you all think about the length of the chapters before I go too much further.**

**And, as always, you reviewers are amazing. Seriously. The singing has only gotten worse.**

**Keep it up, please!**

~*~

***Edward***

I stood in the middle of my silent living room, staring hard at the dark red carpet beneath my feet as I tried to think of something to do.

_Anything_ to do.

I was _bored_.

And it was driving me absolutely crazy.

I finally unpacked my bags, hanging up the wrinkled mass of clothing that Alice would kill me for and shoving things into the overpriced, intricately detailed wood wardrobe. I did the measly amount of laundry that I'd scattered all across the floor in my room. I'd cleaned the bathroom, kitchen and living room.

I'd even called my parents before remembering that the both of them were at work. I called Alice before remembering that she was probably going to be holed up in her studio all day. I even called Emmett in a desperate last attempt at someone to keep me busy, but I'd only gotten his voicemail.

I was running out of things to do and people to call to keep me occupied.

In my previous visits, I'd never been bored before. I'd had all the time in the world to do absolutely nothing and I loved it that way. I never wanted it to change.

I'd spend most of my time running around and trying to remember everything I had to do on any given day that I relished in the fact that I didn't have to do anything when I was here if I didn't want to.

And now… I was out of my mind bored.

And it was all because of one Bella Swan who was currently at work. Not home, with me, keeping me entertained like she'd been doing for the past three nights.

I'd had someone to spend time with, someone to talk to, someone to interact with like I hadn't before and I'd gotten spoiled.

I'd somehow managed to start relying on spending time with her in a few short days and now I honestly didn't know what to do without her.

It was really rather pathetic the way I counted on her company so much. What was even worse was that she didn't even _need_ me around her at all; she had her own life and her own friends right in this small town while I had nothing.

I'd taken a risk by asking her to dinner, clearly not thinking about the uproar it would cause until it was out of my mouth. And I'd been pretty well mortified about the whole thing, spending the rest of the day in my bed and dreaming about Bella.

Yes, I dreamt about her. I didn't really dislike it all that much, but it still didn't make it right, either.

I'd spent most of the day after dragging my lazy ass out of my bed sometime around four that day walking in between my living room and my kitchen. My stomach was grumbling at me, demanding that I fill it with something of substance.

I'd almost broken down and walked over to Bella's to ask her to dinner again, figuring the consequences would be worth it if I could stop my stomach from talking to me but stopped short when I saw Jake's car and two other vehicles lining her driveway. I watched from the window as two other boys that couldn't have been more than twenty years old dragged furniture and boxes out through the garage to pack them into their cars.

It really was over between them. He was moving out and they were over.

I hated myself for the smile my reflection shot back at me at the realization and quickly turned away from the window, walking back into the kitchen to stare at the still empty refrigerator and hope that something would magically appear in front of my eyes.

So I'd continued pacing back and forth between the kitchen and the living room, attempting to watch whatever might've been on the television at the time and ignoring how empty my stomach really was.

I'd even been too scared to go to the local supermarket down the road. Not only was it overpriced, but it always felt slightly unsanitary whenever I walked in there. And I really didn't want to repeat the Price Chopper incident anytime in the near future.

Hell, at that point, I was scared to even leave the house so going down to the pizzeria in town was completely out of the question, too.

By seven that night, I'd given up and prayed that I'd be able to wait until tomorrow to find something to eat. Even if that meant driving halfway to Maine, I'd do it if it meant that I could shop without people screaming at me.

So I walked back upstairs, intent on taking a shower and turning on my dreaded laptop to see if there were any important emails that needed to be tended to.

I was halfway to the bathroom when I heard a loud crash outside of the house. Prepared for the worst, I slowly walked back down the stairs and grabbed the phone from its cradle before standing in the doorway to the living room.

Maybe someone had finally found out where I lived and were throwing things at the house in a sad attempt to make me come outside so that they could attack me.

Gripping the phone tightly in my hand as I searched through the directory for the police number I'd stored in there upon my first visit, I swallowed hard and slowly walked towards the door.

I heard more shuffling as I looked through the peephole, but didn't see anyone on the front porch.

I wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign. There were a hundred small places someone could hide on my property and I'd never see them until it was too late.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped back and yanked the door open, the phone up to my ear as I stuck my head outside.

And there was Bella, kicking what looked like chicken wings across the road.

Relief flooded through me and I smiled, breathing easily and setting the phone down on the small table just inside the doorway.

I called out her name and the relief I felt immediately disappeared when a sob sounded through her lips.

A million different scenarios ran through my head at that sound and I stood up straighter, not bothering with shoes or a coat as I stepped out onto the porch and watched as she shook her head and hurried over to the twelve pack of beer by the bottom steps that I'd missed.

Stupidly, I asked her if she was okay as I walked down the steps as she approached, grabbing the beer case before she could.

And her voice was nothing more than a small squeak. I'd never heard anyone sound quite like that and immediately, a small flare of anger surged through me as I looked over at her house.

Maybe Jake had hurt her somehow. And if he'd laid one hand on her, I would find him and nothing would stop me from ripping him limb from limb.

There were very few people in the world that I would do that for and Bella Swan was one of them.

I wasn't exactly sure _when_ she'd become one of them, but as I listened to her squeak out answers in between sniffles and choked out sobs, it was painfully obvious that I would do anything and everything in my power to make sure that no one ever hurt her again.

Even as she answered me, she wouldn't look at me. And this was just one of those times when I _needed_ her to look at me; I needed to make sure that she wasn't hurt despite her claim that she wasn't. If there was so much as one bruise on her…

So I grabbed her chin, the small jolt I got from just touching her spiking up through my arm and into my chest. I ignored it for the time being, more concerned with making sure that she was in one piece and still as pale as ever.

She started stuttering, flustered, so I dropped the beer and did the only thing that I could think of: I grabbed her face in my hands and told her to breathe.

It was nothing short of a miracle that the shock I experienced upon having my hands fully cupping her face didn't send me clear across the porch or that I merely managed to dry her tears without even showing her what she managed to do to me.

And I swear I could feel my heart swell when she finally told me that she'd brought food over for us to eat. In fact, I wanted to get down on my hands and knees and kiss her feet or propose marriage just because she had two large cheese pizzas, chicken wings and beer to share with me.

Instead, I invited her inside and listened to her tell me about her horrible day.

And as we sat on the couch, stuffing our faces and telling each other about how horrible our days were, I found myself moving closer to her. I leaned in close to listen to everything that she had to say and only snapped out of it when she sat up straight and cleared her throat.

Was I going to kiss her? No, leaning into someone did _not_ necessarily mean that I had to kiss them. I was just listening intently to everything that she was saying.

Even if she was saying how she enjoyed spending time with me. Or the way she'd whispered it when she said it. Her words lingered in my ears, making my heart skip a few beats and I almost missed it when she asked me to go shopping with her.

I watched her face flush and stared at her cheeks, slowly chewing on the pizza I'd shoved in my mouth as I continued telling myself that I had no intentions of kissing her. Whatever she was saying was slowly starting to make its way through my brain and I wanted to smirk at her.

She wanted to go grocery shopping with me and had even suggested wearing a hat of some sort to deflect the attention I'd get thrown my way.

Why hadn't I thought of that before? I'd never really been a hat person, but it might throw some overly excited people off my trail long enough to get some shopping done.

It took me a minute or so to realize that I hadn't actually said anything to her and when she reached up to cover her face with her hands, I finally got my jaw to do something other than chew.

And as I stood in the middle of my living room, still staring at the red carpet, I smiled.

I was going grocery shopping with Bella tomorrow when she got out of work.

I'd see her tomorrow.

It didn't help the issue of curing my boredom right _now_, but it was something to look forward to.

Grumbling at the carpet, I finally looked up, my gaze unintentionally landing on the house across the street.

_Not helping, Edward_.

I turned on my heel and stalked into the dining room, staring at the laptop bag I'd unceremoniously dropped there a few hours ago.

I was trying to avoid looking at my email. I didn't want to know if I had to leave this place earlier than I'd anticipated. Just because my agent said that I didn't have anything to do until after the New Year, it didn't mean it would stay that way for very long.

There was always the small chance that something would pop up that I couldn't avoid no matter how much I begged and pleaded with Jeannie. She was ruthless when I needed to appear somewhere and the word 'no' failed to exist to her.

I was _really_ hoping that there was nothing sitting in my inbox, waiting to take me away from the only piece of serenity I'd get until sometime around March of next year.

Grudgingly, I walked to the table and slipped the laptop out of its case, flipping open the top and pushing the button to turn it on.

I stared at it while it booted up, running my hands through my hair before finally sitting down and clicking on the internet link when the damn thing stopped groaning at me.

It was ancient; there was no other way to put it. I'd gotten it even before I'd moved out of my parents' house and as much as I hated what came with it lately, couldn't find it in me to get a new one.

My email popped up and I quickly typed in my password, sighing as I saw that I had entirely too much email that I didn't have the energy to sort through.

I looked through the names, recognizing Jeannie's name as one of them from early this morning and quickly clicked on it, closing my eyes tightly as my laptop moaned and groaned a little more at the effort.

There wasn't a subject line. Whenever she left that intentionally blank – the woman never did anything unintentionally, even when it came to subject lines on emails – the contents were never very good.

Opening one eye, all I saw in bold type was:

**I think you should see this.**

I cringed, swallowing hard and opening my other eye as the rest of the email finished loading and my hunched over form popped up in a grainy picture.

I cursed whoever thought of phones with cameras because there I was. Hunched over the shopping cart at Price Chopper, an expression close to pain on my face as I stared at the screaming, awe struck lady in front of me.

It was taken about two seconds before I fled the store.

Great. Perfect. Absolutely amazing.

I scrolled down, past the picture, to see that Jeannie had sent a little message along with it.

**My phone has been ringing non-stop, Edward. People want to know what you were doing in upstate New York. I've even been asked if there's someone you're there for. Call me. I mean it. There are only so many things I can tell them when even I don't know the truth. Call me.**

I had a bad habit of ignoring her when she sent me things like this. And I had purposely not given her this number, merely promising that I'd check my email or drive somewhere that I could get reception on my cell phone every so often so that I wasn't completely cut off from my real life and her, in turn.

Truthfully, I was surprised that it had taken people this long to find out that I was even _in_ upstate New York to begin with. When I disappeared for weeks at a time like this, most of the media assumed that I'd gone home to Washington. It seemed that most of the people in Lake George didn't seem to mind that I was invading their town, which was a huge part of the reason that I kept coming back.

The other part was because there weren't any paparazzi hanging around, lurking in corners with their long lenses and snippy attitudes, trying to get a rise out of me so that they could make some decent money off of my enraged face. I couldn't exactly walk freely around town without being gaped at, but I didn't have to worry about camera flashes, either.

Or, at least, I didn't until now.

Looking behind me and out the front windows to the house across the street, I wondered if she'd be able to handle something like this. If something thankfully happened to work out between the two of us, would she be able to handle people practically stalking the both of us each time we stepped foot out of our house?

And then I actually realized what I'd been thinking and shook my head fiercely.

No. I wouldn't subject Bella to this life. There were entirely too many factors pushing against us as it was; I was not going to make it worse.

Plus, she wasn't over Jacob yet. That much was clear last night. He'd been a very large part of her bad day yesterday and I wasn't going to push anything.

Sighing, I ignored the rest of the emails in my inbox, clicking out of the internet and shutting down my laptop before rising out of the chair and slowly grabbing the phone from its cradle.

Well, I'd wanted something to do.

I should've known better.

Dialing in Jeannie's cell phone number after I'd blocked my own, I shuffled into the living room and plopped onto the couch as the line rang, covering my face with my arm as I concentrated on breathing evenly.

"Hello?"

Jeannie's clipped, deep, frazzled voice greeted me from the other end of the phone and I winced.

Not a good sign.

"Hey, Jeannie," I said meekly, attempting to laugh.

I sounded like I was a deflating balloon.

"Edward!" she shrieked.

I had a very great urge to hang up. This was not going to be one of those easy, comfortable conversations we had while discussing a new movie I'd been thinking about taking on.

No, this was going to be a long, drawn out, draining conversation that I suddenly wanted absolutely nothing to do with. Calling her was the worst decision I'd made today. And it was merely noon.

"You need to give me some answers! I'm drowning over here!"

"What are the questions?" I sighed, uncovering my eyes long enough to run a hand down my face and lean forward on my knees.

"The most frequent one is, of course, are you seeing anyone over there?"

I could hear her tapping papers together and imagined her sitting at her large mahogany desk in her expensive, wide, well furnished office on the thirteenth floor of the large agency she spent most of her time in.

And, once again, without my permission, my eyes flicked to the house across the street.

"No," I sighed heavily, quickly closing my eyes and reaching up to cover them again.

I couldn't look over there if I couldn't see.

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty damn positive, Jeannie," I sighed, keeping my eyes covered as I leaned back on the couch again.

"Okay. Why are you in Queensbury?"

"To get away from the people that are asking those questions."

"I can't tell them that!" she shrieked again.

I winced again. The woman needed a very long vacation.

"I'm there because," I sighed heavily, uncovering my eyes and forcing myself to stare straight ahead at the silent television, "I was visiting an old family friend."

"They're going to ask who the family friend is, Edward."

Her voice was back to being the normal, calm, deep Jeannie voice that was merely placating me until she could get what she really wanted out of me.

She sounded like this often. Every time I talked to her, actually. I was probably half the reason she ate antacids like candy. I didn't _mean_ to be difficult, but I liked my privacy. My fans, however, didn't. And she was pretty much obligated to give them whatever they wanted because they were the ones that kept me employed.

I wasn't ungrateful to them. I just wanted a little time to myself after working my ass off for them twenty-four-seven.

"I don't want them here, Jeannie."

"You ruined that, Edward."

"I just wanted food!"

"You should've done something different, then."

I rolled my eyes, reaching up to pinch the bridge of my nose as I launched myself off the couch and stiffly walked into the kitchen.

"It's a friend of a friend of a friend," I mumbled as I yanked open the refrigerator door and grabbed the box of pizza Bella had left with me last night. "He's sick so I'm helping him out for a little while."

"Ah, yes, make you sound like you're doing something charitable," she mumbled.

I could practically hear her pen writing everything down as I grabbed a piece of pizza out of the box and stuck it in the microwave.

I would regret not using a plate when the cheese melted all over the turntable inside, but couldn't quite muster up enough energy to care at the moment.

My safe haven of solitude was being compromised and I wasn't very happy about it.

"All right, when will you be returning?" she continued.

"I go to Washington on the twenty-second of December. I'm spending the holidays with my family."

The microwave beeped and I opened the door, pouting slightly at the prediction I'd made a few seconds ago. I cradled the phone on my neck and reached in, separating the cheese from the glass turntable before shutting the door again.

I'd clean it when I got off the phone.

It wasn't like I had anything else to do, after all.

"Okay, hm," she mumbled, talking to herself.

I rolled my eyes as I bit into the pizza and stood over the sink.

"I got sent a script for you to read over when you come back, by the way."

"Any good?" I mumbled, pulling the pizza away from my mouth when the cheese refused to let go.

"It's completely up to you."

Her way of nicely saying that it probably wouldn't be anything I'd touch with a ten foot pole. She'd been my agent since I first started out as an actor; she knew very well what kind of roles I'd take and which ones I'd never even consider.

"I'll read it."

"I think those were all the questions they had," she sighed. "If there's anything else, I'll email you."

"Thank you."

"Thank _you_ for calling me back in a timely fashion."

I rolled my eyes again, savagely biting off another piece of pizza as I mumbled a 'your welcome' and hung up.

I finished my pizza, cleaned the microwave and stalked into the living room, shutting the curtains – I wouldn't be able to long for the neighbor that wasn't home if I couldn't see her house, now could I? - before plopping back onto the couch and grabbing the remote from the coffee table.

There had to be _something_ on television, right? It was all I had to keep me company today. Something interesting had to be on one of the channels, didn't it?

~*~

I jolted awake when I heard a loud scream sounding from outside and sat up straight, rubbing my eyes and looking around my living room, confused.

I'd fallen asleep. Great. I'd never get back to sleep tonight.

More importantly, I'd have nothing to do then, either.

I looked at the television and saw an old rerun of _Charmed_. Shaking my head, I quickly grabbed the remote and turned it off, rubbing my hands furiously over my face. Standing up, I stretched and looked at the clock on the DVD player, pursing my lips as I dropped my arms to my sides.

It was six o'clock. I'd been asleep for six hours.

And then I heard the scream from outside again and furrowed my eyebrows, walking over to the window and flicking the curtains open again.

It wasn't Bella, that was for sure. I'd know her voice, screaming or otherwise, anywhere. I took comfort in the fact that my neighbor hadn't managed to hurt herself again, but was slightly annoyed that the screaming banshee didn't have any consideration for other people on this street.

It was dark, but I could make out a figure standing in the driveway across the street in the dim light from the porch light next to Bella's front door. She appeared to have long blonde hair and her hands were on her thin hips, her right foot impatiently tapping her pointed heels on the driveway.

"_Isabella Marie Swan!" _she screamed_. "If you are __**not**__ out of that house in the next ten seconds, I'm coming in!"_

Why didn't she just go in to begin with? It probably would've made things a whole hell of a lot easier for everyone else in the entire neighborhood.

"_Rose! Would you just get back in the car? She'll be out – Rose!"_

I watched, amused, as another girl with curly brown hair hastily climbed out of the driver's side of the car and started running after the blonde as she gracefully stalked her way to the front porch of Bella's house.

The blonde began banging on the front door of the house, still shouting at Bella when she didn't answer while the brunette attempted to pull her back down the stairs.

I laughed, shaking my head in disbelief until I saw the door fly open and Bella appeared in the doorway.

At least, I _think_ that was Bella. Her hair was pin straight around her shoulders, the light blue halter top graciously hugging every curve I didn't know she had was covered quickly as she shrugged on a black dress jacket of sorts and the jeans she'd poured herself into should've been illegal.

My mouth watered and my jeans tightened simultaneously.

I quickly stepped back from the window, letting the curtains fall back into place as I pressed my back against the wall and took a few thousand deep breaths through my mouth.

Oh, that was not good.

Why would _anyone_ let her out of the house looking like that? She was newly single and… she was most definitely not coming home alone.

My heart sank as I closed my eyes and gently started banging the back of my head against the wall.

But that was her right as an attractive, single woman. She didn't have anyone waiting for her when she returned home and she had every right to find someone to come back home with.

She had every right to find a rebound guy if she felt so inclined.

I'd never pegged Bella as that type of person, but anything was possible. They were going out, undoubtedly having a few drinks, and it was very possible that some guy would latch himself onto her and never let her go.

He'd be able to take advantage of Jacob's loss and my personal torture.

No. This would not bother me. I didn't have her. I didn't need a girlfriend. I didn't _want_ a relationship. It only ended badly and there was nothing that either of us could gain from it.

It didn't make me feel any better about watching the sexy woman I'd barely recognized as my neighbor walk down the stairs in dangerous heels, but it was the truth.

I was bad for her.

We both knew it.

She'd probably never even thought about it.

I could learn to accept it.

Running my hands through my hair, I plopped back onto the couch and turned the television back on, pouting as I watched one of the Haliwell sisters battle some sort of evil demon on the screen.

~*~

It was nearing midnight and I hadn't moved. I'd been watching the same channel since six o'clock and I hadn't actually seen a damn thing.

She'd been wearing a halter top. In December, she'd walked out of the house wearing a damn _halter top_.

Yeah, okay, she had a dress jacket. What good would that do? It probably wasn't going to keep her warm.

And those jeans were absolutely pathetic. They were a _joke_.

I briefly wondered how she'd been breathing all night.

And that led me to wondering how many drinks she'd had at this point.

Which led me to wonder how many guys were drooling over her perfect shoulders and trying to get into those painted on jeans.

I was driving myself even crazier than I had been this morning. Boredom was nothing compared to this torture I was putting myself through at the moment. I would take boredom over my crazy, overactive imagination any day.

I heard a car coming up the road and immediately jumped up, wincing and forced to grab onto the coffee table and couch as my legs fell out from underneath me.

That was a good reason why I probably should've moved at some point during the past six hours.

Falling to my knees, I crawled over to the window, resting my chin on the windowsill to see Bella tripping out of the car.

She was alone. Thank _God_, she was alone when she got out of that car. No greasy men followed her out and I relaxed, tilting my head to let my cheek rest against the windowsill as well.

Then I winced as her heel found a patch of ice. Great, she'd be on her ass in ten seconds and she'd probably hurt herself even worse than before.

I continued to watch, amazed, as she waved to the two girls in the car and started to walk up to the porch, gliding evenly and gracefully on icy ground.

Maybe she should get drunk more often. She was way more stable on her feet when she had a few in her.

"_Go talk to him!"_ I heard from the blonde as she poked her head out of the open passenger side window. _"It can't hurt!"_

I licked my lips, raising an eyebrow and watching as Bella turned on her heel again, a finger pressed against her lips as she demanded her friend to be quiet.

"_Do it or I'm spending the night in your driveway!"_

I laughed and shook my head at her. She was persistent. I wasn't really sure what she was so persistent about, but it was pretty obvious that she wanted Bella to talk to someone.

"_I will go over there and knock on his door if you don't!"_

My eyes widened and I stood up quickly, having to grip the edge of the windowsill tightly when the pins and needles in my legs only got worse.

Me. The blonde was talking about _me_. Bella wanted to talk to me? What did she want to talk to me about?

Why was my heart beating faster and ready to jump out of my chest?

I mean, it had to be me, right? Who else did Bella really talk to on this street? Sure, we had other neighbors, but they'd never bothered us and as far as I knew, Bella never really bothered them.

I was the only one on this street that Bella talked to freely so I _had_ to be the one they were talking about, right?

Oh, God, that meant that I was a conversation piece with them.

I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

My heart, on the other hand, seemed to love it.

"_Rose, you get back in that car! Rosalie!"_

I snapped out of my thoughts when I heard Bella's voice and smirked when I saw the blonde halfway across the road, her eyes trained on my house with what could only be described as a determined look on her face.

I side stepped towards the door and watched as Bella sprinted across the driveway – impressively, might I add – to grab this Rosalie person around the waist and drag her back to the car.

"_I will go talk to him if you leave right now!"_

"_Promise me!"_

I watched, highly amused, as Bella stuck her hand in front of Rosalie's face, her pinky held up high. Rosalie's own pinky wrapped around it as she nodded once and got back into the car.

I laughed loudly, throwing my head back. I didn't realize that grown women would still do something like a pinky promise to seal some sort of deal.

Shaking my head and still highly amused, I looked out the window again to see the car backing out of Bella's driveway and taking off down the road. Bella stood where she had been, her hands on her hips as she looked across at my house.

Was she really going to come over here now?

Not that I minded, really, but I wasn't sure what it was that she wanted to talk about. It could've been bad news, no matter how much I hoped that it was something else entirely.

Maybe she was moving, too. She'd had enough of the house and this town and she was going to pack up all of her shit now that Jacob was out of her life and move clear across the country to a place where I'd never see her again.

Swallowing hard, I watched as Bella confidently walked across the road, her keys that I hadn't noticed before dangling off her fingers and jingling as they hit her hips with every step that she took.

It was amazing the things that a person could hear when the rest of the neighborhood was deeply asleep and everything was quiet.

I slowly backed away from the window, my legs fully awake now, and stood in the middle of my living room, the only light from the flickering television screen as I listened to Bella's heels on my porch steps.

My heart was rapidly beating in my chest and I kept swallowing hard as I stared at the door, waiting to hear her knock when her footsteps stopped.

Even though I knew it was coming, I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard the three sharp knocks.

Why was I so damn nervous? It was _Bella_.

A different version of Bella, but it was still Bella. Still the same clumsy neighbor that hurt herself more than she accomplished anything she wanted to do. Still the same girl with bright brown eyes, a lopsided mouth and a nervous stuttering problem that fed me and kept me company when I didn't even realize that I needed it.

Still the same girl. The same Bella. Nothing had changed but her clothing and that should _not_ be the one thing to undo me.

I'd seen numerous other girls dressed in less than what she was wearing and had not had this reaction to them.

I _could_ control myself.

I _would_ control myself.

Taking one more deep breath, I smoothed down the front of my shirt and walked to the door, pulling it open to find that Bella's hand was raised to knock again.

"Edward!" she exclaimed, her voice slightly higher than normal as she dropped her arm to her side. "Hi!"

I laughed and nodded at her. "Hello, Bella."

"I'm so glad that you're awake! I wasn't sure." She tilted her head to the side, pursing her lips. "Why are you awake?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"Well, you aren't in your pajamas, silly! You can't sleep if you aren't in pajamas!"

She'd obviously never tried filming a movie.

"Would you like to come inside?" I laughed, moving out of the way.

"Are you tired?"

She scrunched her face up, peering up at me curiously before even stepping foot into the house.

"No."

"Then I'll come in!"

She threw her hands in the air before walking over the threshold and turning on her heel to watch me as I closed the door.

"I was told to come over here," she pointed to the floor, her eyes trained on me.

"Why's that?"

"Because I talked about you _a lot_ tonight," she giggled, throwing her keys to the floor for reasons unknown to me.

"Good things, I hope?" I chuckled nervously, swooping down to pick up her keys and set them on the table next to the door.

This way, we'd both remember that she needed them before she sashayed her way back to her own house.

This way, _I'd_ remember that she actually needed to go home at some point. It was entirely too easy to get wrapped up in everything about her when she was over here.

She nodded enthusiastically, grinning widely at me.

"_Really_ good things, Edward." She walked up to me until she was looking up at me with that grin still in place as she bit her bottom lip, an inch of space between us. "There's something I'd like to try before my buzz wears off."

"Are you sure it's just a buzz?"

Why was she so close? Why was the smell of her flowery perfume still lingering on her even after she'd spent so many hours in what I was sure was an overcrowded bar? Why did that wicked glint in her eye scare me and excite me at the same time?

"Oh, yeah. I'll remember all of this in the morning." She waved a hand at her side flippantly. "And I'll probably be embarrassed as all hell so please… there's something that I'd like to try with you."

"Okay," I said slowly, nodding.

If possible, her grin got wider. I was too busy marveling at how it lit up her entire face to notice that she'd fisted her hands in my shirt and was standing on her toes, her lips a breath away from mine.

I jumped back, slamming into the wall behind me when she gently touched her lips to mine. That spark, that jolt I'd felt when I'd had her face in my hands the night before was there in full force.

And it hadn't deterred her any, either. When I jumped back, she merely stepped forward, her fists still tight around my shirt and her lips still lingering lightly on mine.

I was at a loss. I honestly didn't know what to do. I'd wanted this; oh _yes_, I'd wanted this the moment she stepped onto her porch earlier this evening and despite her claims that she'd remember this, would she?

Or would she remember and regret it? Was she merely doing this because the blonde made her promise that she would? Was this one of the things they'd talked about tonight?

"Edward," she breathed against my lips.

I swallowed hard, closing my eyes tightly and grinding my teeth together as my body reacted in a way that would probably only scare her away.

The way my name sounded when it rolled off her tongue in a breathy whisper was something my dreams were made of. I never actually expected to hear it and now that I had, nothing was stopping the way the bottom half of my body was reacting to it.

"Yeah?"

My voice was shaking and I took a deep breath, hoping that it would restore some rational thought into my brain as soon as possible.

"You're going to give me a complex."

I opened my eyes, looking down into hers, confused.

"What?"

"Kiss me back," she demanded.

"Bella, are you…"

"Stop thinking so damn much and _kiss me_."

"Bella, I don't…"

"Do I have to get rough with you?"

Oh, yes, please do.

I shook my head, swallowing hard again as I watched her smile again.

I… melted. There was no other non-cheesy way to put it. And I would give anything in the world just to see her smile at me that way over and over again.

"So kiss me," she whispered, stepping up onto her toes again and lightly kissing me once. "Kiss me, Edward."

And when her lips landed on mine once again, I didn't hesitate to respond to her this time, pushing off the wall and wrapping my arms around her slim waist.

I caught her top lip in between mine, savoring the taste of beer and something distinctively different, something that was entirely Bella as I splayed my hands on her back, pulling her tight against me.

I felt her lips curve underneath mine in what was undoubtedly a triumphant smile as she ran her hands up my chest, over my shoulders and into my hair, running her tongue along my bottom lip.

I opened my mouth to hers, eagerly caressing her tongue with my own as I moved my hands in front of us, wrapping my arms around her inside of her jacket, feeling every little curve of her body in my arms.

She tilted her head, gaining better access to my mouth as she pressed herself against me even more, wrapping her arms around my neck as she ran her hands through my hair.

I moaned when she wedged one of her legs in between mine, her thigh rubbing up against the part of me that was entirely too excited about this whole ordeal.

"Bella," I breathed, backing away from her. "Bella, wait."

"Why?" she breathed back, kissing a trail down to my neck.

"I… you… we…"

"I've wanted this," she whispered into my ear, gently nipping on the bottom of it.

My knees felt weak. What was she doing to me? This wasn't supposed to happen this way. This wasn't supposed to happen at all.

"Bella," I tried again, my voice a little stronger.

"Yes, Edward?"

I closed my eyes tightly, dropping my forehead onto her shoulder and holding her hips in place as I moved her leg from in between mine. Every time she shifted only made small starbursts shoot up behind my eyes and it was making it _very hard_ to concentrate on doing the right thing.

"If you really want this," I whispered into her ear, not able to resist placing a small kiss on her neck. "We'll talk about it tomorrow."

"Why not now?" she pouted.

I'd never had the urge to laugh and cry at the same time until this very moment. She was doing delightful things to my neck that were making it even harder to concentrate on anything I was trying to say and yet she still managed to pout about it.

I was having a hard time staying upright, much less concentrating on anything but the way her lips felt against my skin, or the shock I felt each time I touched her.

This beautiful, dangerous woman was going to be the death of me.

"You need to go to work soon," I reminded her, breathing her in deeply. "And then we're going shopping. We've got plenty of time to talk about it then."

"You don't hate me for this?"

I stood up straight and looked down at her, watching as she bit her swollen bottom lip and slowly shook my head.

"No," I said softly, rubbing her back. "God, no."

She took a deep breath, nodding and pressing her lips together.

"Buzz is wearing off," she smirked softly, stepping back from me and crossing her arms over her chest. "I'll see you later."

I opened the door for her, neither of us having moved far from it, and handed her keys to her. She smiled softly, thanked me and walked out the door, her heels sounding loudly against the wood planks of the porch.

"Bella?" I called out, hanging out of my doorway.

She turned, her arms over her chest again as she stood at the top of the stairs. "Yeah?"

I stepped out of the house, disregarding the freezing temperature as I made my way over to her, cupped her face in my hands and kissed her once more.

"I'll see you soon," I whispered, backing away from her.

She nodded, the corner of her mouth lifted in another smirk as she walked down the porch stairs and across the street.

I watched as she safely made it into her house before walking back into my own and closing the door behind me.

My entire body felt like I'd just been electrocuted. I was practically humming with the feeling and as much as I wanted to, I couldn't control the stupid, big ass smile that spread across my face.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**I am in shock. The response I got for the last chapter was amazing! Thank you all so much for taking the time out to review and let me know what you think. You have no idea how much easier it makes it to write when I know that you're all enjoying it. Thank you, thank you, thank you!  
**

**I'll be sticking with the longer chapters, as well. That seemed to be everyone's general answer, so the longer chapters will be staying!**

**Now, onto chapter six!**

~*~

***Bella***

My eyes snapped open when I heard the alarm go off the next morning and I moaned, reaching up to slap at it before burying my head back into the pillows and wrapping my arms around it.

I'd had no choice but to dig out the air mattress that had been hiding in the back of my closet since I moved in.

It was not comfortable.

In fact, I usually ended up on the floor when I woke up each morning no matter how much air I'd put into it the night before.

My back had been killing me for the past two nights. Whoever thought that sleeping on the floor would actually readjust your back was sadly mistaken.

My hips were screaming at me, demanding that I move. Or actually go out and buy a new bed.

I didn't have any intention of doing the first until my alarm went off again and I didn't really have any spare time to do the second.

Although, it might've also had a lot to do with the fact that Rosalie had dragged both Angela and I onto the dance floor for every single song the night before.

Apparently she loved absolutely every song the DJ had played last night. She might not have known the name, who sang it or what the words were, but she claimed to love it and would _not_ let us sit down or stop moving for the entire night.

But then she'd buy a round of drinks and all was forgiven.

I yawned, stretching my arms above my head as I buried my nose deeper into the rough fabric of my pillow case and smiled to myself as my last activities of the night flooded my mind.

My eyes widened then and I sat up straight, staring at the wall in front of me.

Oh. My. God.

I'd kissed him. I'd walked my ass over to his house, knocked on his door and had all but assaulted him when he opened it.

I had kissed Edward Cullen.

My famous neighbor.

The one who had shown no previous interest in me at all.

The one who had also told me that he didn't hate me for it.

But I was buzzed.

Who wants to upset a buzzed person?

No one, that's who.

"Oh, my God," I moaned, leaning forward to bury my head in my hands.

I had to go shopping with him today.

"Oh, my God!" I yelled, fisting my hands in my hair and pulling slightly.

He kissed me back.

"Oh, my _God_!" I screamed, leaning forward even more and curling up into a ball at the end of the deflated mattress.

I needed to move. There was no way to fix this.

I'd kissed his neck.

"Oh, my God," I whined into the scratchy blue comforter I'd dug out from the back of my closet as well.

I told him I'd _wanted_ him.

"Oh, my God," I whimpered, burying my nose into the comforter and on the verge of tears.

I sat up straight again, my hair falling in my face as I stared at the wall in front of me again.

He said that if I meant it, we'd talk about it today.

"Oh, my God," I whispered, swallowing hard and pressing a hand against my chest as I fought to breathe evenly.

We would talk about it. Meaning there was something to talk _about_. Meaning that maybe, just maybe, he might feel something for me, too.

"Oh, my God," I breathed, scrambling off of the air mattress and all but flying into my bathroom.

As I stood under the spray in my shower with my hands in my soapy hair, it was almost hard to imagine how much everything had managed to change within a day.

I'd gotten to work way before Jessica would even think about rising from bed, content to have the first few hours of complete silence in what I liked to call my second home.

I could peacefully drink my large cup of coffee from Cumberland Farms and go over everything that Jessica didn't do the day before, correcting her mistakes or simply doing what she hadn't bothered to.

If it had been at all possible, I would've fired her ages ago. But again, this was my only livelihood and I had no desire to lose it. Her father would make all of my fears real and I couldn't afford to be unemployed.

I also couldn't bear to think that she would be taking over the bookstore my family had put so much love and care in to. It made me feel a little sick, to be perfectly honest.

I thought about Edward all day. In fact, I unintentionally ignored most of the customers that walked up to me and asked me for help because I was too distracted by his smile, or the way his eyes lit up when he ate that first piece of pizza, or that stupid crooked grin that I could _not_ get out of my head.

Even when Jessica did finally show up, the fact that she was three hours late and would still undoubtedly want to be paid for it didn't piss me off the way it normally would've.

I could've cared less. This was getting pathetic and highly dangerous, but I really didn't care.

I hadn't felt like this since Jake and I first started dating. And even then, honestly, it hadn't been anything compared to this feeling of lightheartedness and _want_ I had now.

The day literally passed by in a bronze haired, green eyed, beautiful smiled blur and before I knew it, I was in my truck and headed back to my house to get ready for the night out I wasn't really looking forward to.

I knew we did it every Friday. I knew all week that we were going to Saratoga and I knew that I had the perfect opportunity and excuse to get hammered if I felt so inclined to do so.

But it was one less day that I'd have to spend with Edward. It was one day where I wouldn't see him at all. It was one day closer to him leaving.

And I had no idea when he was coming back.

But I got dressed the way I knew Rosalie would want me to be, outright pouting as I did so. Trying to go out in my plain, boring, comfortable jeans and an equally boring and comfortable t-shirt would've only gotten me shoved back into the house so that she could pull out the clothes she'd want me to wear.

And she'd bitch the whole time, too. I'd be wasting her precious drinking, dancing and flirting time and she absolutely _hated_ to miss the opportunity to drive some poor, unsuspecting, innocent – mostly – man to his knees.

She _thrived_ on our Friday nights.

Poor Angela and I were just along for the ride.

I even went so far as to straighten my hair and add a little touch of eye make up, figuring the more effort I put into my appearance, the happier she'd be and the quicker this night would be over with.

Okay, that was a long shot. None of us got home until at least midnight, maybe one in the morning and it was all thanks to Rosalie.

I'd met Rosalie Hale at a college party. My roommate, Lauren Mallory, had dragged me to a sorority party when no one else would go with her.

Lauren and I never got along, but whenever she wanted something, I was her best damn friend.

I spent most of the night standing by the spiked punch bowl, hoping and praying that Lauren would be done drinking her weight in alcohol soon.

I had a class in the morning and two papers due all within twenty-four hours; I honestly didn't have time to be pretending to socialize with perverted, drunken frat boys who thought they were the best damn things in the world.

I'd gotten hit on by more guys than I could count while standing there. I'd had beer spilled over the shoulder of my Van Halen t-shirt and was about two centimeters away from being puked on about an hour ago.

I was ready to go back to the quiet confines of our dorm room to spend the rest of the night putting the finishing touches on my papers.

I'd been cursing Lauren up one side and down the other when I lost sight of her and only looked up when I heard a low growl coming from the other side of me.

"You'd think that my roommates would have some consideration," the tall, blonde bikini model stated as she grabbed a can of beer from the table next to me. "I have classes in six hours."

"I can't even _find_ my roommate," I mumbled, huffing as I crossed my arms over my chest and stood up on my toes.

There was a sea of people and none of them looked like my brunette roommate.

The model continued to eye me as she calmly sipped off her beer, seeming to be completely unaffected by the loud noise and drool appearing around her as all the guys that had previously tried picking me up stood at her feet, their tongues rolling out on the ground as they stared up at her.

"Do you have papers due, too?" she'd asked, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow in my direction.

"Two," I sighed, trying once again to see if Lauren was anywhere near where I might've been standing.

Naturally, she wasn't. That would've made my life entirely too easy and she really _hated_ to do that.

"Do you live in the dorms?"

I nodded, sighing heavily as I stepped back onto the heels of my feet and looked over at her.

Why was she so concerned with school work, anyway? She didn't strike me as the type of girl that came to college to actually learn something.

"Yes," I sighed, getting slightly annoyed with the line of questions she was shooting at me. "Why?"

"Your roommate is Lauren Mallory, right?"

I nodded slowly, narrowing my eyes at her.

Why did she seem to know so much about me when I didn't even know who she was?

"One of my roommates has been fucking her for the past three months. I'll tell him to keep her here."

I brightened, suddenly very thankful for the model standing next to me, one arm tucked under her breasts as she played with the silver and blue beer can in her other hand.

"On one condition," she continued, pursing her lips at me.

Always a catch; _always_.

"What?" I mumbled, too concerned about not failing my courses to really argue with her about anything at that point.

"You let me tag along so that I can actually get some work done, too."

"Deal!" I said quickly.

And we'd stuck together ever since. She could be a stuck up, pompous pain in the ass a lot of the time, but she was always there for me when I needed her. She was the most honest person that I knew and she never minced words; something that I usually needed whenever I talked to her about something important.

Figuring that my appearance would satisfy her tonight, I grabbed a dress jacket and walked downstairs, throwing it over one of the chairs in my dining room before walking into the kitchen.

I grabbed a piece of pizza from the box I'd taken home with me last night, heated it and stood in the middle of my dining room as I ate it.

And when I finished with that, I found myself staring off into space as my thoughts drifted to Edward.

I would see him tomorrow after I got out of work. I'd be spending most of the afternoon I had left with him.

Granted we were only going to be grocery shopping, but it was a little more time with him.

And I would happily take any time with him that he was willing to give to me.

I'd never had the opportunity to just hang out with him before. I'd always had Jake to keep me occupied and as much as I'd wanted to go over to see Edward, Jake always conveniently managed to find something for the two of us to do.

It made more sense now, of course, but before he'd brought it to my attention, I hadn't put two and two together.

I was so wrapped up in putting clues together that explained Jake's behavior that I'd completely missed hearing Angela's car pull into the driveway until I heard Rosalie's mouth shouting at me from outside.

Finally making it outside just as she began pounding on the door and passing her quick wardrobe inspection, it took her all of twenty seconds to start questioning me.

"Who is he?" she'd demanded, turning around in the front seat to face me once we'd all gotten back into the car.

"What?"

"Don't play stupid, Swan," she warned, her glass blue eyes narrowing at me as she pointed a perfectly French-tipped finger in my direction. "You've got that stupid, goofy big smile on your face. Who is he?"

"And what happened to Jake?" Angela piped up from the driver's seat, looking at me in the rear view mirror. "You never did give me the whole story."

Angela Webber was the nicest, sweetest girl that I'd ever met. How she'd gotten roped into being friends with Rosalie had completely baffled me. When I began hanging out with Rosalie more, Angela was always there with us, rolling her eyes at mostly everything that came out of Rose's mouth.

She was the complete opposite of the blonde sitting in the front seat. Her brown hair was wavy and her black framed glasses were always sliding down her nose, causing her to push them up every few seconds.

Rose hated them with a passion. I thought they looked cute. Angela didn't care either way.

She'd been dating the same boy – Ben Cheney – since high school and as far as I knew, their marriage really was like a fairytale come true.

I hadn't enjoyed wearing the bright pink bridesmaid dress last September, but it was the least I could do for the girl that always turned the worst possible day into something positive.

So I took a deep breath and launched into the whole thing, not leaving any detail out as we made the forty minute trek to Saratoga.

By the time I was finished, Rosalie's eyes were still trained on me and this time, they were barely little slits.

"You're not upset about Jake," she stated.

"A little bit."

"But not enough to stop you from going after your hot neighbor."

I grinned despite myself. She hadn't said anything about his celebrity status. She didn't seem to even care.

I wanted to kiss her.

"No," I grinned.

"Then go for it!" she exclaimed, reaching over and smacking my arm.

Rather forcefully, might I add.

"Don't abuse her, Rose!" Angela scolded, rolling her eyes as she pulled into the parking lot that accessed all of the clubs on Caroline Street.

"Is he interested in you?"

"I don't know."

I saw her roll her eyes before she turned around and we all climbed out of the car, meeting at the back of it and linking arms as we always did while we walked toward The City Tavern – a four story night club that we frequented.

"He'd be stupid not to be," Angela stated, smiling over at me. "You're a great catch, Bella."

"Thanks, Ang."

"Yeah, yeah, enough of that. Just go for it!" Rosalie exclaimed, throwing her free arm in the air dramatically. "What have you got to lose?"

"A pretty good friend."

"Friends are better lovers."

If I hadn't actually heard what she'd said, she would've sounded philosophical. If I'd had a few drinks in me at that point, I probably would've even agreed with her and thought nothing of it.

But I had heard her and I hadn't had nearly enough to drink yet.

"Who said anything about lovers?"

"Bella!" she screeched, obviously exasperated as she dug her ID out of her jeans pocket before we approached the door to the bar. "That's what you're thinking and don't you _dare_ deny it."

"I don't even know if he's interested in me!" I exclaimed, finding my own ID and handing it to the bouncer once we made it there.

"I'm interested," he said, the overhead light glinting off the top of his bald head.

"Spoken for!" Rosalie chimed, dragging the both of us into the warm bar and immediately up the first flight of stairs. "Bella, you can _make_ him interested in you."

I rolled my eyes, sighing heavily as I braced my hands on Angela's shoulders as we walked up the second flight of stairs, our heels loudly clacking against the concrete.

It was absolutely amazing how we managed to walk back down these damn things without killing ourselves after we'd finished drinking. Especially with the heels Rose always insisted that we wear each week.

"How?" I sighed heavily, the tell tale pounding of the music on the fourth floor starting to interrupt our conversation.

"You have your feminine charms," she grinned as we walked up the third flight of stairs.

"Right," I scoffed, rolling my eyes.

"I'm sure he's interested," Angela assured me, patting one of my hands that was still on her shoulders. "Maybe he's just scared."

"He deals with a hell of a lot more than his neighbor being interested in him," I grumbled. "I'm sure he's not scared."

"He's a stupid man!" Rosalie yelled as we finally reached the fourth floor landing and started towards the open doorway. "And they're always scared."

"But he's always so… confident!" I yelled over the music as we walked up to the end of the crowded bar and waited for the bartender to make his way over to us.

"Make the first move! It sounds like you don't have a choice!"

"I can't do that!"

"Why not?" she demanded, her hands on her hips as she glared at me again.

"Bella," Angela laughed, shaking her head at me. "These times, they are a' changin'."

"What are you talking about?"

"Make the first move."

And if Angela was saying it, it was definitely something to take into consideration. She wasn't a take charge type of person either and if she was telling me that I needed to make the first move then it definitely meant something.

So we spent the rest of the night drinking, dancing, watching Rose get an unsuspecting man all riled up only to kick him when he was practically on his knees, and working out a game plan for me the rest of the night.

And when Rosalie and Angela backed out of my driveway when our night out was over, I stood where I had been, staring across the road at Edward's house with my keys in my hand and my lips twisted to the side.

Rose was right. What did I have to lose? He lived in California the majority of the time and I'd only see him when he came back here to escape. I would still snow blow his driveway when it needed to be done, but if that was all he wanted from me, then I could learn to deal with that.

Plus, I'd pinky promised Rose that I would go talk to him.

I'd seen the television's blue-white light from the living room before we pulled in. That led me to believe that he was at least in there, which would make things ten times easier when I knocked on his door.

There were no longer any ifs in this equation anymore. I was feeling pretty damn good about things right at that moment and I didn't want to waste the false sense of confidence I had surging through my veins.

The worst that could happen was that he would be sleeping and I'd quietly make my way back to my own house and collapse onto the air mattress to sleep off the buzz I had going on.

Squaring my shoulders, I'd walked across the street and nearly danced up the porch steps to his front door, knocking three times and waiting impatiently for him to answer the door.

He had to answer the door. Who left the television on if they weren't in the same room?

Just as I was about to knock again, the door flung open and he stood in front of me, his hair in a million different directions – as usual – and a slightly crazed look in his eyes.

If it wasn't for the beer I'd had swimming around in my system, I probably would've backed away slowly and apologized profusely.

Alas, that wasn't the case.

As I washed the shampoo out of my hair, I could clearly remember everything that I'd said to him. I'd been spot on about that part, at the very least.

I remembered having to practically force him to kiss me back. I had quite literally thrown myself at him.

I groaned softly as I grabbed my body wash and poured it onto the loofah hanging off the shower caddy.

But the way his lips felt against mine when he finally did kiss me back was enough to make the torment I was putting myself through right now worth it.

Even if it never happened again and all he wanted to talk about was the restraining order he'd slap at me later on today, I'd forever be able to remember the way he tasted on my tongue.

And that glorious moan that had escaped his throat would forever be sounding throughout the inside of my head.

_I_ did that. He moaned that way because of _me_.

Setting my loofah back onto its hook on the shower caddy, I rubbed my hands over my face and took a deep breath, reveling in the hot water that cascaded down my aching back and hips.

There was still a hell of a lot of time left between now and when I would see him after work. There were still a hell of a lot of scenarios that my mind would be able to come up with that all involved him telling me not to bother him anymore, too.

But that moan; that little, glorious moan would be the background music to it all.

And really, how much could I complain about _that_?

~*~

I spent the rest of the day holed up in between bookshelves, nervously righting tipped over books and ignoring the obviously curious glances Jessica kept shooting over at me when I surfaced.

I was ignoring her in general, too, which was probably half the reason for her looks. I never outright ignored her. I couldn't. I was her boss; it was unprofessional and useless. I'd never done it before, no matter how pissed off I'd been at her.

But I was afraid that the minute she said something about her upcoming vacation and began acting pretentious, I'd blurt out that I'd kissed the neighbor I'd made her stay away from for all this time. And no one really needed to know about that except for Edward and me.

That moan was imbedded into the surfaces of my head and whenever a customer stumbled over to me, asking for help, it was all that I could do to block it out.

It was making it very hard to concentrate on anything else.

Around noon, I'd run into my second floor, hole-in-the-wall office and locked the door behind me.

I'd given Jessica a half-assed excuse about some paperwork that hadn't been done – and it truthfully hadn't – and escaped before she could even nod her head.

I sat in the beat up chair at my desk, nervously chewing on my fingernails and intently watching the clock as it ticked even closer to four o'clock. The paperwork that had been so pressing four hours ago failed to make a difference with every tick of the second hand. And when the minute hand moved, Edward's moan only got that much louder.

But I didn't want it to go away. I never wanted to forget it. If it was the only thing I'd ever get from him after tonight, I wanted to record it and play it over and over again for the rest of my life.

One single sound had never held so much importance to me before.

It was equal parts terrifying and extremely satisfying.

So when the clock finally told me it was four o'clock, my heart jumped into my throat and my hands started shaking as I stood up from my desk and began to gather the papers that still needed to be finished.

I'd bring them home with me just in case Edward told me to leave him alone. This way, I'd have something to stare at for a few more hours when I was alone and thinking about everything I should've done differently.

Grabbing my purse and keys from the other end of the desk, I walked out of the office and down the stairs on shaky legs, for once very thankful that Jessica had actually taken off at four on the dot like she always did on Saturdays.

She had a social life to get to, she'd once told me, and she didn't want to spend one more minute here than she had to when there was a much more interesting world waiting for her.

Glancing over the counter of the front desk quickly, I bit my bottom lip when I saw the mess there.

She hadn't done anything. Usually, she at least had one thing done. The smallest, most insignificant thing that I never wanted done until it was necessary was always the thing she did first, but today there was nothing. Everything was exactly how I'd left it last night before I'd left.

I was honestly beginning to wonder exactly _what_ she typed up when I heard her fake nails clacking obnoxiously on the keyboard throughout the day.

Sighing heavily, I ran a hand through my hair, shaking my head before walking out the door and locking up.

I pulled into my driveway five and a half minutes later, my eyes flicking to his house in my rear view mirror before I got out of the truck and ran into the house.

There was less of a risk of having him coming over here to yell at me in the open if I didn't linger in the driveway.

I dropped my things in the doorway, slamming the front door shut only to open the closet door behind it and grab the cowboy hat sitting on the top shelf.

My mother and Phil had been invited to a Halloween party a few years ago and had dressed up as a cowgirl and a cowboy. I don't quite know how I ended up with them in my closet, but right at the moment, I wasn't too concerned with the how's. I had what I needed and I wasn't going to question what was finally working out right.

I still had hope that things would be okay. That when he said he didn't hate me last night, he meant it. I wasn't sure how I'd be able to handle this rejection otherwise.

And I wasn't sure why he already seemed to mean more to me than Jake ever had.

Throwing the cowboy hat on top of my purse, I dashed up the stairs and into my bedroom, ripping open the top drawer of my dresser and grabbing the plain black bandana I used to tie my hair back with during the hot summer days.

It was much easier than using one of those stupid rubber bands that tore my hair out of my head.

Walking back down the stairs, I stood in the doorway leading to the living room, running the bandana through my fingers as I stared at the cowboy hat.

It could work out all right. He could merely tell me that he didn't want to be with me in that way, but we could still be friends.

I could still be friends with him. I didn't _need_ to be more than that if he didn't want me to be. If he didn't feel anything the way that I did when I kissed him, then we could just continue being friends.

I took a deep breath and walked towards the hat, my bottom lip in between my teeth as I reached it.

I could do this. I could act as though nothing happened if that's what I had to do. I _could_ be just his friend.

Snatching the hat, my purse and keys off the floor, I took one more deep breath before locking and slamming the door behind me.

I kept my eyes trained on his house as I walked across the road, my heart in my throat and my palms slick as I gripped tightly onto the brim of the hat.

How was I going to deal with the months in between visits if I'd ruined everything with one kiss? I spent the time when he wasn't here thinking about him, even if it hadn't been as intense as it had been in the past few days.

Even if I hadn't noticed it until Jake had pointed it out to me, it was exactly what I'd been doing since the first time he left.

How was I going to survive the time without him if we couldn't make something work out between us?

"Shut up, Bella," I whispered to myself as my left foot stepped onto his driveway.

I took another deep breath as I reached his porch stairs, swallowing hard as I walked up and stood in front of his door.

_Well, here goes nothing._

Reaching up with my free hand, I knocked on the door and closed my eyes tightly, immediately hearing his footsteps behind the closed door.

_I can do this. I can do this and I will live through this. This will __**not**__ be the end of my world._

I heard the door open and opened one eye, looking up to see Edward standing in front of me, a crooked smile on his face.

I wasn't sure what to think of that. It could've meant anything, really. It didn't necessarily mean something _good_, either.

"Hi," I said meekly, opening my other eye and waving with my free hand.

"Come in!" he exclaimed brightly, still smiling and moving out of the way. "We have so much to…" He stopped, tilting his head to the side as he spotted the cowboy hat and bandana in my hands. "_What_ is that?"

I stepped over the threshold, swallowing hard and smiling nervously.

"It's your disguise," I said quietly. "You'll blend right in with the rest of this place. I promise."

"A cowboy hat?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at me as he closed the door behind me.

And with that simple movement, he put himself impossibly closer to me and rendered me completely speechless for a minute. Even when the door was closed, he didn't take a step back, making it almost impossible to form any of the words that needed to be said.

"Yes," I choked, nodding and running the brim of the hat through my fingers. "You haven't noticed how almost every guy around here wears one?"

He shook his head, pursing his lips, his eyes still trained on it.

"I barely leave the house, Bella." He looked up at me again, smirking. "How would I notice?"

My cheeks burned and I bit my bottom lip again, awkwardly shrugging one shoulder as I shifted the weight on my feet.

"I don't know."

"I never thought about that, though. I was thinking maybe a baseball cap or something…"

"If you don't want to wear it, you don't have to," I sighed heavily, crossing my arms over my chest and blinking rapidly to get rid of the tears that were suddenly threatening my eyes.

Oh, my God I was such an emotional girl sometimes. This is pathetic. He didn't want to wear the hat and it was no big deal. We'd find him another one.

"No!" he exclaimed, reaching forward to gently grab my wrist. "It's brilliant. Really."

I nodded, setting the hat and bandana on the table next to me before looking down at my feet and biting my bottom lip again.

He still had my wrist grasped in his hand and when I looked up at him, he was staring at my shoes with his free hand already buried in his messy hair.

"Can I ask you a couple things?" he asked, quickly looking up at me.

The smirk he'd had on his face had long since disappeared and even though I'd already been nervous before I made it inside, this made it even worse.

I nodded mutely, not trusting my voice enough to actually form any words for him.

This was it; he was going to ask me to leave and I could practically hear those words in his beautiful voice. Hell, I could almost feel fractions of my traitor heart starting to break off into small, miniscule pieces.

This wasn't supposed to be like this. I wasn't supposed to be so invested in something that would _never_ happen between us. I wasn't supposed to be feeling this way for someone that obviously never wanted me that way.

I looked away from him, once again having to blink rapidly when those stupid tears started to fill my eyes again.

"Are you completely over Jacob?"

I scrunched my eyebrows together as I stared at the dark red carpet in his living room before looking up at him again.

"What?"

He was blurry and I had to look away from him yet again when I felt the tears that I hadn't gotten rid of start threatening to fall over my cheeks.

I wouldn't let him see me cry again. Not over this, not when he'd seemed so chipper when he answered the door. I wouldn't ruin his good mood with my own stupid thoughts and ideas.

"If he showed up in a week and said that he'd made a mistake," he started, grabbing my chin and forcing me to look at him, "would you take him back?"

Great. I'm sure he could see that I was on the verge of crying now. So I huffed and pulled my wrist out of his grasp to wrap my arms around my waist.

"No. Edward, what does that have to do with anything?"

"It has a lot to do with everything." I watched his lips twitch before he frowned down at me. "Your relationship with him is completely over, right? There's no chance that you'd even want him back?"

"No. It's over. Even if he gave me a million dollars, I'd never take him back. Edward…"

"I have one more question," he interrupted softly.

I took a deep breath and nodded.

I was confused. I wasn't sure what that had to do with anything or why it even mattered at this point.

"What…?" He stopped, shifting his weight on his feet and dropping his arms to his sides, his shoulders hunching forward as he let go of my chin. "What do you want from me?"

Ah, yep, there it was. What I'd been expecting this whole time. The sting leading me into nothing but a spiral of regret and guilt caused by one too many Espresso Martini's.

"What?" I choked, swallowing hard and looking down at my feet again.

God damn tears… why couldn't they just go away and leave me alone? Or at least wait until I _was_ alone?

"What do you want from me?" he repeated, his voice low and a hell of a lot closer than he'd been just a second ago.

This, naturally, sent my heart into overdrive despite the way I wanted to run back to my house and hide there until I was too damn old to remember what I'd done wrong in the first place.

"Nothing!" I exclaimed, backing up and only succeeding in slamming my back against the front door. "I just… I didn't… if I'd known that kissing you would make you think that I wanted something from you, I never…"

"Oh! No, Bella. Okay." I heard him take a deep breath and jumped when he put his hands on my shoulders, still staring down at my feet and ultimately, his since he'd gotten closer. "Last night, you said that you wanted _this_. What does _this_ entail, exactly?"

I snapped my head up to look at him, my watery eyes wide. His eyes were trained on me and his breathing was quick and shallow as he gently gripped my shoulders and seemed to wait for me to say something.

He looked almost… nervous.

"Uhm… it entails…" I trailed off; trying to think of the right words to say that wouldn't either scare him away or insult him in some way. "You."

I am a dumbass. That really narrowed things down for the both of us, didn't it?

He licked his lips and nodded, spreading his legs out a little wider in what I assumed was a more comfortable position to stare down at me.

Or to let me down gently. I wasn't really sure where this whole line of questioning was going.

"What part of me, Bella?" he whispered.

"What kind of a…?"

"Answer me," he pleaded, his eyes boring into mine with something like sadness etched into them. "Please."

"I want all of you," I breathed, shaking my head at him as I swallowed hard.

There was no turning back at this point. The least I could do was to be truthful with him.

"Can you handle that I'm an actor? Can you handle the fact that every tabloid in the country is going to make a big damn deal out of one stupid dinner with a friend?"

"I trust you," I whispered, my hands shaking as I reached up to place them on his arms. "And I know you enough to know that you wouldn't do that to anyone."

"I wouldn't do that to _you_," he corrected softly, standing up straight and taking one step towards me, effectively closing the gap between us. "But I need to know, Bella. Can you deal with all of the shit that comes with dating me?"

"You want to date me?" I squeaked, digging my fingertips into his arms.

"Yeah," he smiled, leaning down to rest his forehead against mine. "I guess I do."

"You guess?"

"I need to know, Bella." The smile was gone and he was back to being completely serious. "Do you think you could handle everything that comes with being with me?"

I took a deep breath through my nose and pressed my lips together.

This was it. This was my chance. This was what I'd been waiting for.

"If it means being with you and knowing that you were really _with_ me," I started softly, swallowing hard, "then yes, Edward. I can."

I expected a smile or for him to grab me in his arms and hug me until I couldn't breathe. Something along those lines; something to let me know that this was what he really wanted.

Instead, he merely licked his lips and took a deep breath.

Oh, God, what if he was just joking? What if he just wanted to see what it would take to make me crumble in front of his eyes?

Well, it wouldn't take long for him to witness it if that was what he truly wanted.

"People are going to be taking your picture," he said softly, sounding as though he was almost in pain. "You'll never have a quiet, simple life again."

"You'll be there with me?" I asked, my voice a few octaves higher than normal.

That's what usually happened to me when I got nervous and had to speak at the same time. It wasn't actually a squeak, but it sounded nothing like my normal voice at all.

It was embarrassing and only made me even more nervous somehow.

"When I can be, yes, of course. I'm never leaving you alone when I don't have to."

With those words, it felt like I was flying. Like a giant weight had been lifted off of my chest and as I watched the slow smile form on his lips, I let out a strangled laugh.

"Then I don't care," I laughed, shaking my head. "I really don't care."

And then that grin was there and his arms finally moved from my shoulders to do as I wished; he wrapped them tightly around my waist and pulled me against him, burying his nose in my shoulder as I flung my arms around his neck and held on just as tightly as he was.

"Music to my ears," he mumbled, squeezing me once before standing up straight and placing his hands on my waist.

I just grinned up at him, entirely too excited about the whole idea of Edward Cullen and I together. _Together_. Dating. Kissing.

Oh, Lord, _kissing_.

"So tell me what's up with the bandana you've got going on there." He pointed with his chin, not moving from me. "What's that for?"

I reached up and ran my hands through his hair, giddy at the fact that I could do it freely and without getting the strange looks I'd imagined getting from him before.

"Your hair is entirely too noticeable. Even under a hat, people would pick it out in an instant. So we'll cover it."

He smiled down at me, leaning down and gently touching his lips to mine.

Sparks went off inside of my head and I smiled, wrapping my arms tightly around his neck again and standing on my toes, fusing my lips against his before he backed away.

He didn't hesitate this time, his lips meeting mine just as eagerly and his arms once again winding around my waist to hold me against him.

"You're brilliant, you know?" he asked as he backed away from me.

I wanted to pout at the fact that he'd pulled away, but couldn't even find it in me. I was way too damn happy about the fact that this man; this glorious, wonderful man standing in my arms was now dating me. He was my boyfriend and even though it didn't really balance out in my head quite yet, it didn't matter that much to me right now.

I was soaring, walking on air and every other cliché that anyone had ever come up with to describe how amazing someone else had made them feel, and I didn't want to over think anything and everything.

I was happy. Happier than I'd ever been in a long time and I wasn't going to question it.

I was going to live in the moment, revel in it, and absolutely smother myself with how it felt because I'd never had this feeling before.

And as I sat him down at his dining room table with the black bandana draped over his shoulder and my hands in his hair, I couldn't stop the goofy grin Rose had been teasing me about last night.

In fact, I didn't even want to _attempt_ it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**You guys are absolutely amazing. Honestly, I probably wouldn't be updating as often as I am if it weren't for your reviews, so thank you so, so, so much.**

**And to answer one question that I got, Edward and Bella are both twenty-five in this story.**

**I had a bit of a hard time with this chapter, so I hope it's okay and that you all enjoy it!**

~*~

***Edward***

"I look ridiculous."

She snorted, leaning forward to rest her chin on the top of the steering wheel.

"I do!"

"Yes," she laughed, nodding as she sat up straight again. "You do."

"Are you sure this will work?"

"You aren't recognizable. You're ridiculous, remember?"

I pursed my lips at her, turning to look in the side mirror to admire her handiwork. My hair was completely hidden underneath the black bandana, the hat was big enough to hide an entire person on the top of my head and my coat was pulled up around my chin, leaving only my nose visible to everyone else.

"Ridiculous," I mumbled again, sitting back on the uncomfortable bench seat and stealing a glance over at her.

She had her lips pressed together in a very sad attempt at not laughing at me like she'd been doing since putting the stupid hat on my head about ten minutes ago.

But it was a hell of a lot better seeing her hold in laughter than those tears I'd seen in her eyes earlier.

Those had been like a very swift jab to my stomach. Especially knowing that I'd been the one to put them there. I was causing her pain, she was _crying_ because of me. I _never_ wanted to be the cause for any of that when it came to her.

And I'd been so damn anxious to see her, too. I wanted to talk to her, ask her everything I'd been thinking about since the night before.

I'd been wired – too busy thinking about what had just happened to get any real sleep. My mind was in overdrive, wondering about how she really felt about me, why she kissed me and how we'd deal with all of this when four o'clock rolled around.

I didn't want her to regret it or be too embarrassed to come back to me. I didn't want her to avoid me at all costs or be scared of me or her actions because God knows that I wasn't.

And when the entire scene from last night ran through my head with those thoughts, I decided that I wasn't going to let her. When four o'clock rolled around and she came home, if she wasn't standing on my front porch within ten minutes, I was going over there.

I wasn't entirely sure when I'd decided that I wasn't going to let her get away, but I'd made up my mind that I wasn't going to let her pass me by. She was the one person that had never treated me differently even when she knew who I was. She was the one person I could spend hours with and never get tired of.

Not only was I anxious to talk to her, but I was terrified. What if she wasn't really over Jacob and I was going to end up being her rebound? They'd only broken up a few days ago and already she was moving on to me? I didn't want to be the guy she used to get over him; I wanted to be the guy she wanted to be with.

And if she truly was over him, would she be able to handle all that my lifestyle would throw at her? The constant hounding, the speculation, the non-stop barrage of photographers surrounding our every move? She didn't have to deal with any of that now; did she really want to give that up just to be with me?

I wasn't sure how we were going to make the long distance thing work, either. I'd never had to think about something like that before. But I couldn't see myself without her for very long and having to deal with just phone calls would be bad enough. Did she want to be with me enough that she'd deal with not being able to see me on a regular basis?

And she did. She _trusted_ me; something that my previous girlfriends hadn't even tried to do before all hell had broken loose between us. She wanted to be with me, she was willing to give up her quiet, normal, peaceful life in this small town that we could both call home for me.

That had never happened before. I'd never had someone sacrifice so much of their life just so that they could be with me the way I wanted them to be.

I smiled over at her, watching as she kept her eyes trained on the road in front of her as her fingertips danced along to a rhythm that was completely in her head.

She'd insisted that we take this death trap she called a truck because it was possible that someone had seen me take off in the Volvo when I tried this by myself a few days ago.

I hadn't thought of it that way and was forced to grudgingly agree, climbing into the passenger seat of the rusty vehicle while she practically danced over to the driver's side, her keys held up triumphantly above her head as she climbed in.

And I vowed, then and there, that I would be driving us to and from wherever we needed to go in my rental car.

At least that had a working radio.

And it didn't feel like I was sitting in a time bomb that was ready to go off at any wrong movement from either of us.

Most of the ride was spent in a comfortable silence, only interrupted when Bella would look over at me and snort again.

I'd merely pull the brim of the hat down lower, causing her snorts to become giggles and then outright laughter when I sunk lower into the seat and crossed my arms over my chest.

But the sound of her laughter made it all worth it. And the way she'd throw her head back to laugh when I attempted at a southern accent to go along with the hat was even better.

Maybe not such a good idea when she was driving, but it still made me feel a hell of a lot better to know that I could make her laugh like that.

When we pulled into the parking lot of Price Chopper twenty minutes later, all traces of relaxation were gone from my body. Just the sight of the outside of the stupid store made me tense, which was pretty damn stupid of me.

I couldn't avoid every single place that I'd caused a scene in. If I did, I'd never have anywhere to go. I'd be house bound and that would get pretty old after a while.

"Hey."

I snapped out of it, looking over as I heard Bella's voice sound through my thoughts to realize that she'd parked as close to the front of the store that she could get. I tried my best to smile at her, feeling slightly sick through it.

If I had her house bound with me, though, maybe it wouldn't all be so bad.

"Hm?" I mumbled, trying to make my smile look as real as possible.

She grabbed my hand and intertwined our fingers, squeezing gently and smiling softly at me.

"No one but me knows, Edward. We'll be out of here in an hour at the most."

"I know. I'm just…"

"I know," she nodded, squeezing my hand again before letting go and pushing open her door. "An hour!"

I swallowed hard and grabbed the door handle, yanking on it and stepping down from the truck. I placed a hand on the top of the hat, making sure that it stayed in place even though there was no wind that might've taken it anywhere in the first place.

I wasn't going to be taking anymore stupid changes with being recognized by someone else. Not when I was here in the place I'd run away to. Not when I was with the girl that had put aside her life to join mine, no questions asked. We had a little over two more weeks to enjoy the peace and quiet with each other until I had to go back to California and deal with everything that went with it. I didn't want to waste any part of the days I had with her.

Running away from a screaming horde of people didn't really equal time well spent with Bella.

Paranoia had never been that much of an issue before. And if I hadn't had Bella with me, maybe it still wouldn't have been.

I didn't like the screaming and the rushing up to me, but if I was by myself, I could handle it a little better. They didn't want to hurt me; they just wanted to see me.

But I'd been by myself. I'd been able to escape when the situation called for it because I didn't have to worry about anyone else escaping with me.

I had Bella now. If the hat thing didn't work and someone recognized me anyway, Bella would be shoved front and center into the mix. There was a very high risk of her getting hurt in the whole thing if it got to that point and I was pretty sure that I would be the first one pushing people out of the way to get to her.

Jeannie would skin me alive when she got _those_ pictures.

"Maybe we should go somewhere else," I mumbled as Bella rounded the hood of her truck and joined me on the other side.

"Maybe you should relax and look around," she said softly, once again twining her fingers with mine and pulling me into the open.

There were people scattered all over the parking lot this time, chasing after their children or shoving paper bags full of their groceries into their trunks.

And all of them had only briefly looked at me as we walked up to the front door, their eyes flicking away from mine as they continued on their way. None of them had gaped, stopped or pointed and I felt myself beginning to relax as we made our way through the automatic doors.

"Told you," Bella muttered out of the corner of her mouth as she grabbed a cart.

I tugged on her hand, getting her to stop and leaned down to press a kiss against her cheek, carefully avoiding poking her in the eye with the brim of the hat.

"When you're right, you're right."

I watched her face redden and grinned, taking the cart from her and following behind her as she pulled a list out of her purse.

And for once in a very long time, I felt normal. I was relaxed, once again hunched over the handle bar of the cart as I followed Bella up and down aisles, watching as it took her ten minutes to decide which cheese she wanted more.

I knew we'd never be out of here within the hour, but if I could be seen as a normal guy roaming around this store with his girlfriend then we could spend six hours in here and I wouldn't care.

"What do you think about chicken parmesan for dinner?" she asked absently, her eyes trained on the two different packages of cheese she held in her hands.

I rested my elbow on the handle and cradled my cheek in my hand, smirking as I watched her eyes dart from package to package, clearly wondering what cheese would be best for the dishes she had in mind.

"We're having dinner together, huh?" I asked.

She looked up at me, nodding as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

"It's the least you could do, you know," she drawled as she threw one of the cheese packages into the cart and set the other back into the freezer.

"Excuse me?" I asked, raising an eyebrow that she probably couldn't see anyway.

The hat was huge. And I loved it. My girlfriend and her crafty ways were absolutely brilliant.

And if it wasn't for the way she'd just said that damn comment and made my heart fall into the very pit of my stomach, I probably would've smiled stupidly at the thought.

"Making me take you grocery shopping." She rolled her eyes and turned away from me. "Such an invalid."

I gaped after her, my mouth quite literally hanging open as she moved down the freezer, running a fingertip on the cold metal casing.

But then she looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes bright and a grin firmly planted on her lips.

I relaxed, breathing evenly and easily as I caught on to what she was doing. Something that I should've picked up to begin with. Something that should _not_ have had me reacting that way.

_Relax, Edward. Everything in your life right at this moment is perfect. Stop worrying and enjoy what you've got now._

"That was a low blow," I pointed at her, moving the cart up behind her and effectively trapping her against the freezer. "It practically demands retaliation."

"Oh? And what sort of retaliation do you plan on delivering?"

She jerked her chin up as she turned around, thankfully not tripping over the bottom of the cart as she did so, and crossed her arms over her chest in defiance.

I could still see the grin fighting to take over the hard line of her lips and almost couldn't help myself from grinning back.

"It will not be easy," I started, circling the cart until I was standing next to her. "And you probably won't like it very much."

"You can't make predictions like that now, can you? You have no idea what I like and what I don't like."

And as she placed one of her hands on my chest when I got closer to her and bit her bottom lip, I would've bet my entire career on the fact that Bella Swan really would be the death of me.

Not that I'd be complaining while it happened. Oh, God, no. I would die with a smile on my face if this woman was the last person I ever saw.

"Hm," I mumbled, gently wrapping my hand around her wrist and pulling her completely against me. "I'll find out."

"There _are_ other people around."

I jumped out of the bubble I forgot we weren't encased in to see a middle aged woman with three young children standing in front of us, staring at what I was sure was about to become a very interesting show starring me and Bella.

Oops.

I held my breath, waiting for her to realize who was hiding underneath the hat and for the jaw-dropping, stuttering and possible screaming to begin.

"Sorry," Bella laughed, gently pushing on my chest and getting me to move out of the way as her face flamed red. "We'll be out of your way."

She grabbed the first tub of butter she'd seen and plopped it into the already over-filled cart before quickly directing us away from the frozen food section.

"That was embarrassing," she laughed as we walked down the cereal aisle towards the cash registers.

"That was absolutely amazing!" I exclaimed, grabbing her around the waist and making her stop. "She didn't even blink at me," I whispered when I'd turned her into my arms.

"The hat works for you," she laughed, reaching up and gently tapping the top of it.

I laughed, pressed my lips to hers exuberantly and quickly and stepped back from her.

"All thanks to you."

"Well," she breathed, clearing her throat.

I grinned. _I'd_ done that to her. And it felt _really_ good to know that she reacted to me the same way I reacted to her most of the time.

"That was the plan wasn't it?" she asked, smiling softly at me as she moved back to the cart.

"I will never doubt your choice of head wear again."

"As you shouldn't." She nodded matter-of-factly before pursing her lips at the cart and looking back at me. "Do you have everything that you need?"

I peered over her shoulder and into the cart, looking over all the items that were mine and then landing on the cereal I'd been craving since the last time I'd been here, and nodded.

And then, before she could move, I wrapped my arms tightly around her waist and pulled her against me.

"Yes," I whispered into her ear, "I have everything that I need."

~*~

"You really don't need to help me bring all of this stuff in, you know."

I ignored her, grabbing a few more bags out of the bed of her truck and walking up the driveway to her front door, waiting as she walked up behind me with the keys.

I finally had groceries and I was pretty damn proud of it. I had also become very attached to the hat that made me look completely ridiculous simply because no one even looked twice at me while I was wearing it.

I'd made it up to the counter, once again cringing at my face on the cover of Life & Style and made it through the check out, easily paying for everything in cash and able to walk out of the store without someone screaming at me.

The afternoon had been a success and I would be spending the rest of my night with Bella.

Really, I had absolutely nothing to complain about at the moment.

"Edward, you have a lot of things to bring over to your own house. I'm more than capable of bringing all of this in on my own."

I merely tilted my head at her, looking pointedly at the doorknob and then the keys in her hands.

If she really thought that I'd let her bring all of those bags in by herself, she was out of her mind. There might not have been much ice left on the driveway, but there was more than enough to make her slip and fall when she undoubtedly found it.

Plus, it was one sure way of spending just that much more time with her.

"It's really infuriating when you don't talk," she grumbled, unlocking the door and pushing it open.

I smiled brightly at her and stepped into the living room, blinking at the total emptiness of it.

The only piece of furniture that was left in the small room was an old blue rocking chair, an out-of-place lamp and a small side table that was holding up a very large file folder stuffed with papers.

She'd told me that he'd taken pretty much everything, but I figured that she at least had a _couch_ to sit on.

"He really did take everything, didn't he?" I asked, turning around when I heard her step into the house.

She sighed heavily and nodded, shrugging and offering me a sad, pathetic smile.

"Yeah."

"Bastard," I grumbled, my eyes narrowing as I stomped my way into the kitchen and set the bags down on the floor.

Easily, the lightheartedness I'd been feeling since we walked out of Price Chopper was gone. Seeing what he'd taken from her – the beautiful, damn near perfect woman I was now officially attached to – had just made everything that I'd been feeling previous to this moment disappear.

I didn't understand, no matter how beneficial it had been to me, how he could walk out on her over something as ridiculous as a jealousy issue. And to take more than half of what had been in the house they'd shared didn't make anything easier to comprehend, either.

I waited until she walked in behind me, setting the few bags she held in her hands on the floor next to the ones I'd just placed there before I grabbed her arm and kept her in place.

"What else did he take?" I demanded.

"Nothing that I can't replace."

"Bella, what else did he take?"

She sighed heavily again and reached up to run her free hand through her hair, staring down at the floor and slowly shaking her head.

"The couch, the love seat, the bed, his dresser, a night stand, a few lamps and a couple of pots and pans. It's nothing that I can't replace."

"He took your bed."

She nodded, dropping her hand to her side as she looked up at me again.

"He took your _bed_," I repeated, nearly growling as my eyes narrowed even further. "What have you been sleeping on?"

"It's not a big…"

"It _is_ a big deal, Bella!" I exclaimed. "This is a big damn deal!"

She'd conveniently left out the part about him taking her bed, meaning that she was probably sleeping on the floor or in that damn recliner that didn't look at all comfortable out in the living room.

All she'd said was that he'd destroyed her bedroom. Never had she mentioned that he'd done so by taking out an entire bed.

It made sense and I should've been able to read between the lines and figure it out for myself. But no, I'd been too damn focused on the way her lips moved when she talked to really be able to think about anything else.

"I've been sleeping on an air mattress," she finally grumbled. "Please, Edward, don't make a big deal out of this. He's gone and if it made him feel better by taking stupid possessions like that, then who cares?"

"I care. I care that you probably haven't gotten a good night's sleep in two days."

I stepped forward, cupping her face in my hands and studying her eyes carefully.

How had I not noticed before that they were practically bruised and definitely bloodshot? I noticed everything about her and yet I didn't see that she was probably falling asleep on her feet?

Some boyfriend I was already turning out to be.

"Edward, I'm fine."

I moved one hand from her face, yanking the hat off of my head and throwing it on the floor next to us before firmly planting my lips on hers.

I felt that immediate surge of electricity flow through me and wrapped my free arm around her waist, pulling her against me as her arms lazily came up to wrap around my neck.

I tilted my head, gently scraping my teeth across her bottom lip as I rubbed my thumb across her cheek.

"You're staying with me tonight," I whispered, breaking away from her.

"No, that's not…"

I cut her off, my lips on hers once again and my tongue running across her top lip as she quickly opened her mouth underneath mine.

I felt her starting to untie the knot at the base of my neck, quickly pulling the bandana off my head to bury her hands in my hair as her tongue met mine.

I turned us both, pressing her back against the door of the refrigerator and bracing my hands on each side of her.

"You're staying with me tonight," I whispered again, breathless as I backed away again.

"That's not…"

Again, I placed my mouth on hers, quickly being able to pick up from where I left off with her before. She fisted her hands in my hair, wrapped one of her legs around one of mine and I couldn't have stopped the moan that sounded out of my mouth and into hers if I'd wanted to.

Sure, I'd had her pressed up against me quite a few times in the short time since we'd become an official couple, but it hadn't really been anything like this before. She just _fit_; like I'd been missing vital pieces of me and she'd been the only one able to fill them.

Nothing had ever felt like this before. I'd never had the type of feeling running through my veins like I had with her. Like every nerve ending was on fire and alert, aching and waiting for anything and everything this woman was willing to give to me.

I wasn't sure whether to be terrified of it or to revel in it. Nothing had ever hit me so hard before and I really didn't know what to do about it.

"You're staying," I breathed out as I backed away once more, resting my forehead against hers, "with me tonight."

"I have to work in the morning."

"I have an alarm clock."

"It'll wake you."

"I won't mind." I opened my eyes to find her looking up at me. "I'll even sleep on the couch if you want me to."

"No. I won't kick you out of your bed. I'll stay on the couch."

I rolled my eyes, closing them and once again pressing my lips against hers, placing a series of quick, soft kisses against them.

"You need a good night's rest," I whispered, leaning up to press a kiss against her forehead. "Air mattresses are not comfortable."

"You're telling me," she grumbled, leaning forward to sink against me and rest her cheek against my chest. "I have Monday off. I'll stay over tomorrow night."

"Bella," I sighed, shaking my head and leaning down to bury my nose in her shoulder. "Why are you making this harder than it needs to be?"

"You come here to get away from everything, including annoying alarm clocks." She shifted away from me and I backed up to look down at her. "I don't want to interrupt that."

"How many more times are you going to make me tell you that you're not? I _want_ you there, Bella."

"Tomorrow," she promised. "I'll stay with you tomorrow night."

"You're kind of infuriating, you know."

She laughed and nodded. "Yeah, I know."

I sighed heavily, linking my fingers together behind her back and rolling my eyes dramatically before dropping my forehead back onto hers.

"Fine. Tomorrow night you're staying with me and you're going to get some sleep."

"You really don't need to…"

"Do you want me to say it again?" I laughed, gently nudging her nose with mine. "I don't do anything that I don't want to do, Bella."

"I feel bad."

"Don't," I whispered, brushing my lips against hers and watching as her eyes fluttered closed. "Please don't."

"If I stay with you tomorrow night," she started, clearing her throat and opening her eyes. "I may never want to leave."

"Who says that you'd have to?" I asked, smiling softly at her.

"Work. Jessica goes on vacation at the end of the week and then I'll have no days off whatsoever."

I rolled my eyes. I'd never met the girl, but from the little that Bella had told me about her, I already wasn't very fond of her.

"Why is that she has your vacation time? You own the store, don't you? Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

I watched the blush rise up straight from her neck and raised my eyebrow at her. Ah, so this Jessica person was blackmailing her with something embarrassing to get what she wanted.

"It's… nothing."

She tried to move and I merely locked my arms even tighter around her, shaking my head.

"It's something."

"It's not a big deal."

And when she said that, it always meant that it was. I'd come to find out that it was usually a big damn deal that she always insisted on downplaying for the sake of not hurting anyone's feelings.

"Don't lie to me, Bella. Please," I said softly, pleading.

"You're really good at that," she breathed, licking her lips.

"Don't distract me, either."

"She found out that you were my neighbor right after you moved in and got settled and I gave her my vacation time so that she wouldn't bother you," she finally mumbled in one breath.

My eyes widened slightly and I nodded once. "Oh."

She nodded, folding her bottom lip in between her teeth and looking away from me. "Yeah."

I opened my mouth, closed it and then opened it again. "Oh."

Apparently, I wasn't going to be able to form any words other than that one.

"Let's get the rest of the groceries, okay? I'm really hungry."

I merely nodded, letting her walk out of my arms and following her out of the house, my mind on everything but the groceries that would probably be frozen to the bed of the truck if we left them out there much longer.

She'd given up her vacation time to save my privacy from someone who did nothing but aggravate her. Just a few hours ago she'd given up her quiet life to jump head first into the craziness of mine.

What more was I going to let her sacrifice for me without doing the same for her?

~*~

I stood against the Volvo the next afternoon, staring up at the front door to the bookstore and clenching my hands together in a fist in front of me.

We'd had a quiet night after I'd made my mouth form something other than "Oh" and no matter how hard I'd tried to get her to come back to my place with me, she insisted on staying at her house.

Even when I kissed her goodnight at the door and had managed to drag her out onto the porch almost without her noticing, she'd quickly backed away and huffed heavily at me when a gust of very cold wind blew through to freeze the both of us where we stood.

I think someone was trying to tell us something.

I had to wait until tonight and she wasn't going to have it any other way.

Honestly, I just wanted her to get some sleep. And holding her in my arms all night as she did so would just be a very large bonus for me.

When I finally made it home, I'd spent at least another four hours pacing around my living room, running my hands through my hair and thinking about everything that she was giving up for me.

It's not like I had to sleep, after all. I had the entire fucking day to sleep away if I felt so inclined to do so.

And I _knew_ that she'd have to give up a very large piece of her life, but I hadn't realized just how large it had been when we were just friends. She'd never said anything about Jessica Stanley stealing away her vacation time because of me or Jacob being crazy and jealous enough to storm out on her the night before I arrived.

What else had she given up that she hadn't told me about?

And it wasn't going to be an easy task to get all of that information out of her by any means. She'd probably fight me tooth and nail, finding ways to distract me and making me completely forget that there had been something else on my mind.

So instead of spending more of my day pacing around my house and worrying about everything that was out of my control, I grabbed my car keys and stalked out of the house, driving down to the bookstore and standing on the curb.

I could at least try to make _this_ right for her.

Taking a deep breath and unclasping my hands, I pushed myself off the car and started the short walk up to the bookstore, my eyes trained on the front door.

It had probably been someone's house at one point in time, but had been converted into a place of business. The gold knocker on the dark purple door only made me shake my head as I pushed through it, looking around when it snapped shut behind me.

There were three groups of four wide, seemingly comfortable arm chairs in the main room, a small table that held a coffee maker, sugar and instant creamer and off to the side of the wide front counter with a dirty blonde girl sitting behind it was a doorway leading into the room with the books.

There wasn't anyone else in this room and for that, I was grateful. I wasn't sure what kind of a scene I'd be making with my self-proclaimed biggest fan, but I was positive that I didn't want an audience.

I nodded to myself, impressed, and hooked my thumbs into my jean pockets as I casually strolled up to the front counter.

Who I assumed was Jessica sat in front of a computer, her eyes trained on the screen as she tapped bright pink and obviously fake fingernails on the space next to her, either ignoring or completely oblivious to me.

I put on the nicest smile I could muster and placed my hands, rather loudly, on the counter in front of her.

She jumped and the look of annoyance on her face was immediately wiped away when she saw me.

"Oh, shit," she mumbled, her mouth forming a perfect 'o' and her eyes widening. "It's… you."

I nodded, keeping the smile in place.

"Yes."

"Are… is… do you… what can I…?" she sputtered, blinking rapidly at me. "You're really here?"

I nodded again. "Yes."

I watched as she took a deep breath and wanted to cringe away from her as she jumped up, squealing, the chair she'd been sitting on rolling backwards and hitting the wall behind her.

"_Oh, my God_!"

"I'd rather not cause a scene, so if you could keep your voice down, I'd really appreciate it."

I smiled brightly at her, fighting the urge to run through the entire store to find Bella and hide behind her until Jessica forgot that I even existed.

I had a job to do. This needed to be done and I needed to do it for Bella. That was the only reason I was letting her gawk and stare and squeal without turning and fleeing like the coward I'd turned out to be since arriving here.

"Oh, yes, of course!" She let out one more squeal, actually dancing a little before taking another deep breath and standing up straight. "Anything I can do for you?"

"Actually, there is." I smiled and leaned even further across the counter, using every acting skill I'd managed to possess and not feeling the least bit bad about any of it. "I heard about your upcoming vacation."

"Did you want to come?"

She was batting her eyes at me and I had to cough in order to keep the combination of revulsion and disbelieving laughter out of my voice.

It was not an easy task.

"Ah, no, but thank you for thinking of me. I was just wondering if, when you got back, you wouldn't mind covering Bella's shifts for a week for her. She really needs a vacation, too."

I watched as her eyes narrowed, her illusion of what she wanted me to be to her slowly diminishing with each passing moment that I stood in front of her.

"I don't have any obligations to this place or to her. She knew when she hired me that I didn't want to work any more than I had to."

"Even for me?" I asked, smiling at her and reaching across the counter to place a hand on her shoulder. "I'd really appreciate it."

"What does it matter to you?"

Ah, the gossip was so much more to her than the welfare of her employer.

Squaring my shoulders and letting my hand fall from her shoulder to place it back on the counter, I licked my lips and continued to smile at her.

I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of being the first to know anything that concerned me and my personal life.

"I'll tell you what." I leaned in closer, keeping my voice down and looking around conspicuously. "If you do this for me, I'll have a ticket waiting with your name on it to attend one of my movie premieres."

The star-struck look was back on her face as she smiled, showing all of her teeth, and started to bat her eyes at me again.

Did that really work for anyone? It was doing absolutely nothing for me and it was getting increasingly harder for me to pretend that it was. Especially with a straight face.

"You'd do that?"

I nodded, smiling sweetly at her as I stood back up and drummed my fingertips against the counter.

"So what do you say? All expense paid trip to one of my premieres and all you have to do is look over the store for one little week."

"It's a done deal." She nodded at me, a small squeal escaping her mouth again. "Can I just get one picture with you? No one will believe this."

So I took about six pictures with her, standing as far away from her as she would allow as the flash went off and she squealed over them before I finally had the chance to ask her where Bella was.

Her face fell and she quickly put the camera back in the travel bag she called a purse, her arms over her chest and her lips pressed together in a firm, annoyed line.

"She's been holed up in her office all day," she stated, her voice dripping with disdain as she rolled the chair back over to the computer. "I'll call her and tell her to come down."

"If you'd just tell me how to get there, I'd be glad to go find her myself. I wouldn't want to trouble you."

"No," she said icily as she picked up the phone at her elbow. "I'll call her."

Okay, then.

"Thanks, Jess. I _really_ appreciate it."

I smiled at her and watched her flash her teeth at me again, her annoyance completely gone as she pressed a button on the base of the phone.

"You're more than welcome, Edward. It was my pleasure."

I stepped back from the counter, turning my back on Jessica and wandering idly around the main room with my hands behind my back.

I heard Jessica hang up the phone and smiled out the window I was standing in front of, listening carefully to hear any sort of noise that would indicate that Bella was on her way out to see me.

It was absolutely pathetic the way that I was acting. It was like I _had_ to see her. Being away from her felt like small, important pieces of me were missing. It didn't matter how short of a time it had been since I'd seen her last. I ended up staring at the clock on my DVD player more often than I ended up doing anything else, anxiously waiting to hear her truck rumble up the road.

"What's up, Jess?"

I turned, hearing her exhausted voice and watched as she leaned against the front counter, running a hand through her hair as she stared, unblinking at Jessica.

"Someone is here to see you."

Bella turned, standing up straight and a grin breaking out on her face when she saw me.

The grin, however, faltered as she glanced between me and Jessica as she continued to throw obvious glances my way.

"Uh," she mumbled, stiffly walking over to me. "Everything okay?"

I nodded, smiling brightly at her. "Everything's fine. Better now, actually."

"What are you… uh…?" She looked over at Jessica again, who was pointedly staring at the computer screen as if something would pop out of it at any second before she looked back at me. "I don't understand, Edward."

I placed my hands on her cheeks, still smiling at her as I shook my head.

"Everything's fine," I said again, softly. "Have you got a few minutes?"

"Oh, yes." She turned to Jessica, who was blatantly staring at the two of us at this point. "Jess, I'll be down in a few minutes."

She grabbed my wrist even before Jessica answered, holding it firmly in her hand as she led me through the door and up a set of stairs hidden just next to it. She pushed open a wooden door, pulled me inside of the small, stuffy room and slammed the door behind us.

"Care to tell me why she's being so damn calm with you in the same room? Do you know that she's got your picture as her computer background? How did you… why are you… how is she so…?"

"Bella," I laughed, stepping up to her and wrapping my arms tightly around her waist, yanking her against me. "Everything is _fine_."

"How?" she sighed, exasperated as she draped her arms over my shoulders.

"I bribed her."

"No!" she whined, leaning forward to rest her forehead against my chest. "Why did you do that? She's never going to leave you alone now!"

"I did that so that you can take a week off when she gets back."

Her head snapped up again and she narrowed her eyes at me.

"What are you talking about?"

"When she comes back from her vacation, you're taking one of your own," I said softly, leaning down to brush my lips against hers. "She'll stay here and watch over everything."

"She's probably going to burn the place down."

I shook my head, twisting my lips to the side and smiling down at her. "No, I don't think she'd do that."

"What did you bribe her with?"

"Tickets to one of my movie premieres." I shrugged easily. "She'll be waiting out with the rest of the fans, but I didn't tell her that part."

Her mouth dropped open, the corners lifting up before she got herself in control and pressed her lips together.

"That wasn't very nice."

"It got you a much needed vacation, though, didn't it?" I leaned down and kissed her gently, smiling at the very recognizable current of electricity flowing through my body. "And you can spend all your time with me."

"Why would I wanna do that?" she mumbled against my lips, her hands tangling into my hair as she kissed me again.

"Gotta get your fill of me, you know." I kissed her again, digging my fingertips into her shirt. "I won't be here forever."

The sharp, shooting pain that was sent through the pit of my stomach at my own words was almost numbing and I had to hold onto her even tighter to keep myself from doubling over.

"Yeah," she whispered sadly, stepping down from me. "I know."

"Bella…"

She lifted her chin, forcing a smile at me that I absolutely hated as she untangled her fingers from my hair.

"Edward, it's our reality. Plus, it's going to work out." She shrugged easily, the fake smile slowly turning into a small, real one. "I'm not letting you go and I'm not going to give up on you."

I smiled down at her, leaning down again to rest my forehead against hers and kissing her gently.

"You don't know how good it feels to hear you say that," I whispered, closing my eyes tightly.

She placed her hands on my cheeks and I opened my eyes again, looking directly into hers.

"If you're all in, I'm all in," she whispered back, rubbing her thumbs over my cheeks. "That was the deal."

I smiled and captured her top lip in between mine, gently sucking on it before backing away reluctantly.

"I'll let you get back to work." I looked around the tiny office and sighed, squeezing her once before letting her go. "Tonight?"

She nodded, dropping her arms to her sides and tilting her head at me.

"You're sure about that? I don't want to…"

I stepped in to her, kissing her again.

"Okay," she breathed when I stepped away again. "Tonight."

"Thank you."

As she walked me out of the library, the door snapping shut behind me, I quite literally bounced to my car.

She was going to stick with me and there weren't a whole hell of a lot of people that had truly done that since I'd become an actor. Knowing that she was there and she had every intention of _staying_ was a feeling that I couldn't even describe.

But it was pretty fucking good to know.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**I'm still singing. My household is not too happy with me at the moment, but I couldn't care less. You guys are amazing; your reviews are like strawberry shortcake to me.**

**And I **_**love**_** strawberry shortcake.**

**So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for taking time out to let me know what you think about my writing. I really appreciate it and love everything you guys have to say.**

**And hey, I made it to 100 reviews! That's pretty damn cool, so thanks for that!**

~*~

***Bella***

I watched out the side window of the store as Edward pulled away from the curb and turned down our street, my arms wrapped around myself with one of the dumbest smiles on my face.

The exhaustion I felt in every inch of my body wasn't gone, but it wasn't as prominent as it had been a few minutes before. As cliché and cheesy as it was, every time he touched me made my nerve endings quickly spark to life as if they'd been impatiently waiting for him.

I hadn't expected to see him until after I'd gotten out of work. It had scared the hell out of me, seeing how calm Jessica was when her celebrity obsession was standing in the same room with her.

Before we'd come to loathe each other, she'd once told me that if she ever had the opportunity to meet him, they'd be doing a whole slew of illegal things no matter where they were or who was watching them. I'd come to learn in time that she wasn't joking so the fact that she was calmer than I'd ever seen her and seated halfway across the room from him scared the shit out of me.

Then, when he'd told me that he'd bribed her in order to get me a week's vacation that I hadn't had in longer than I could remember, I swear my heart had stopped. The things she'd probably want from him in order to give me some time away made me sick.

I guess a ticket to a movie premiere was all it actually took and my heart was back in my chest, beating where it was supposed to be as opposed to where it had been stopped in my throat a few moments before.

"So do I still have to stay away from him?"

I was jerked out of my thoughts when I heard Jessica's voice behind me, smug and seemingly all-knowing.

"Yes," I said immediately, not turning around to face her even though his car had disappeared around the corner about two minutes ago.

"I'm going to a premiere with him, Bella." I could practically hear her rolling her eyes. "Don't you think it's pointless to stay away now?"

Oh, if only she knew that she'd be safely away from him; merely a face in a sea of other fans that all looked exactly the same. How she even thought that she'd be going _with him_ when he'd only offered her a ticket didn't make any sense to me, but I guess simple things like that didn't exactly compute in her mind.

"What do you think will happen?" I asked, finally turning around to face her. "Do you think he's going to fall madly in love with you?"

"Do you?" she spat, glaring at me from across the room. "Do you really think that you have a shot in hell with him?"

For all the staring she'd done while he was here, she'd done a really good job at ignoring how he'd had his hands on my face.

And even though I knew better, her words still hit home. I knew that he was with me and I knew that he _wanted_ to be with me, but it hadn't stopped the doubts I'd had since before there was even a possibility of being with him.

"What do you see when you look at him, Jess?" I asked, slowly making my way over to the counter and standing in front of her. "What do you see in him that makes you want him so damn much?"

"He's hot," she said simply, shrugging her shoulders and leaning back in her chair. "And he seems like he really knows how to give a girl a good time." She flipped her hair over her shoulder, defiantly crossing her arms over her chest. "You probably wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"So you think that you'd be a good match for him based on the fact that he's hot and looks like he knows what he's doing in bed? That's the only reason you want him?"

"Just because you're his damn neighbor, you think that you know everything about him?" She leaned forward in her chair, crossing her arms on the space of counter in front of her. "You don't know anything about him."

I bit my tongue hard enough that I immediately tasted blood as I glared at her.

If only she could get into my head or be in my shoes for one day, then there'd be no way that she'd be able to say any of these things to my face.

"And you do?" I asked evenly, struggling to keep my voice low and neutral.

The pathetic amount of customers wandering around in the other room probably wouldn't appreciate hearing me scream at her the way I really wanted to.

"I know more about him than you could ever hope to know. You're just a toy, Bella, and if he's given you any indication that you're anything else, I feel sorry for you. He'll drop you on your ass as soon as he's out of this place and back in California."

Again, her words had managed to hit home and I was only able to run my tongue along my teeth as I continued to glare at her, my mind reeling.

Maybe she hadn't missed his hands on my face after all and was just finding every little thing she could use to hurt me.

"You don't know him at all," I seethed.

"Neither do you. Whatever you think he is, it's only because he's away from everything out here. The minute he's away from here, away from _you_, you'll see. You mean nothing to him."

"And the five minute conversation you had with him earlier today immediately makes you soul mates, doesn't it?"

"No, but it makes us pretty damn close. You have no idea what we talked about, Isabella."

And the way she jutted her chin out, squared her shoulders and sat up a little straighter in that damn chair of hers made me want to kill her. My fingertips twitched against my sides and my nostrils flared as I fought to control the temper only she could bring to a boil.

"And it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to me," I said, my voice low. "You have the fantasy of what he is in your head. I know better; I have who he really is and one insignificant conversation with you is not going to change that."

"You're not enough for him," she snarled, leaning forward to slap her palms on the counter in between us and slowly rise up out of the chair. "You're not pretty enough or talented enough or smart enough or good enough to be with someone like him. He'll drop you on your ass just as quickly as he did the rest and he won't think twice about it. You're _entertainment_ and anyone can see that."

I clenched my jaw together and took a deep breath through my nose as I continued to glare at her, my hands clenched into fists at my sides.

It would've been so easy to snap my hand back and have it land perfectly on her fake nose if I wasn't her boss.

"You know nothing," I hissed.

"We'll see."

Without saying another word, I stormed back up the stairs and slammed the door to my office closed before leaning back against it and unclenching my hands.

I should've been downstairs, helping the pitiful dribble of customers that were searching through the books I'd put my heart and soul into finding and dutifully ignoring Jessica as she sat at her perch, not letting her words eat through my brain and making me doubt Edward.

I knew him. I knew that I knew him. I knew who he really was because I wasn't like her. I wasn't out for fame and the chance to say that I fucked Hollywood's Golden Boy six ways to Sunday. I knew him and I knew that he'd never hurt me that way.

But those words; those five, tiny words that held so much truth – _"You're not enough for him"_ – were burning through my stomach, into the backs of my eyes and down my cheeks.

Oh, yes, I knew how true _they_ were.

~*~

By the time the day had come to a close and I was parked in my driveway, I felt more than defeated. The day hadn't gotten any better after my confrontation with Jessica and even though I had one of the most wonderful things to look forward to upon being home, not even that could perk me up.

I'd stopped crying after about fifteen minutes, pulled myself together and had boldly walked back downstairs in an attempt to be the sophisticated, professional owner of the bookstore that was more than half empty on most days.

The paperwork that was always hanging over my head had finally been finished a few moments before I'd gotten called downstairs, so I really didn't have that good of an excuse for hiding up there for the rest of the day no matter how much it may have been warranted.

Her words kept ringing through my head. No matter what I tried thinking about or how happy I tried to be about spending the night with Edward, nothing worked. They were seared into my mind, taunting me and daring me to deny them.

I couldn't do that. I couldn't deny what was obviously the truth no matter how much I really wanted to.

Lazily reaching over, I grabbed my purse and pushed open the truck door, sliding down from the seat and sluggishly making my way to my front porch.

My eyes landed on a white piece of paper taped to the door and I swallowed hard, slowly reaching up to grab it.

_Bella-_

_I'm doing the cooking tonight. All you need to do is show up. Soon._

_Edward_

I choked on the unexpected sob that sounded through my lips and hastily shoved the key into the lock before I leaped into the house and slammed the door behind me.

He was cooking for me. He was cooking and he was waiting for me to show up. He _wanted_ me there and all I could think about was how horrible of a match I was for him.

Fucking Jessica Stanley, acting all high and mighty and actually having the nerve to be right about something that had meant the world to me two minutes before she opened her damn mouth.

I growled, throwing my purse and the note on the floor next to me angrily before stomping my way up the stairs and into my joke of a bedroom.

I ripped through my dresser, throwing a clean pair of panties and a pair of jeans onto the mostly deflated air mattress behind me before whirling around to my closet and tearing through the hangers in search of a shirt.

She _would not_ be right about this. She _couldn't_ be right about this. Not when I felt this way about him, not when I'd finally been happy after so long of being simply pacified with a boring relationship, and not when I had such a limited amount time with him. No, she was _not_ going to steal this away from me.

Snatching a light blue long-sleeved t-shirt off the hanger, I draped it over my arm before grabbing the duffel bag on the shelf above me, amazed that it was still there at all.

I had a duffel bag. I had no bed, but at least I had a damn duffel bag.

Growling again, I snapped the closet doors closed and walked over to the air mattress, hastily shoving all of my clothes into the bag before walking into the bathroom across the hall.

Grabbing everything I'd need for one night, I threw all of that in the bag as well, zipping it and stomping down the stairs.

I _deserved_ to have something good in my life. I _deserved_ to have Edward in my life. I _knew_ who he really was; the glitz and the glamour that surrounded him on a nearly daily basis when he left our town didn't make a damn bit of difference to me. He was merely Edward Cullen; the compassionate, caring, sweet guy that had for some reason picked me.

Out of all the women that he could choose from, he chose _me_.

I stopped, halfway to the front door with the bag slung over my shoulder as I swallowed hard.

_Why_ did he choose me? What did he even see in me? I was ordinary, clumsy and boring. None of those qualities could ever measure up to someone that he _should_ be with.

She was right. I wasn't good enough for him.

Swallowing hard again, I slowly started walking back to the front door, bending down to scoop up my purse and keys before locking the door behind me and stepping out onto the porch.

And I still wanted to be with him despite all of that. I still wanted to spend the time he had left here with him. If it was the only chance at the sort of happiness I felt when I was with him that I'd ever get again then I didn't want to waste it.

I was only setting myself up to get massively hurt, but if I had the opportunity to feel what I'd never felt with Jake then I was going to take it.

I pulled the lapels of my coat tighter around me as I made my way across the street and up the steps to his porch, standing in front of his door and taking a deep breath.

I knocked, shifting uneasily as I listened to his hasty footsteps on the other side of the door. I smirked, shaking my head and looking down at my feet.

For now, at least, he didn't see that I wouldn't be enough for him later on down the line.

The door flew open and before I could really comprehend much of anything, I was in his arms and his lips were against mine.

I let my duffel bag and purse fall to the floor as he closed the door behind me, one of his arms still tightly wrapped around me as I reached up to wrap my arms around his neck.

"Missed you," he breathed before kissing me again, his mouth urgent against mine.

I pressed myself against him, running my tongue along his bottom lip and eagerly meeting his when his mouth opened underneath mine.

My heart simultaneously seemed to crack a little and speed up at his words and I tangled my hands in his hair, pressing his face as close to mine as it could possibly get.

I wasn't going to waste this. I would take everything that he was willing to give to me without complaining and without asking for more because I didn't know when I'd be cut off from it.

"We'd better eat," he breathed again, backing away slightly. He kept one arm around my waist and I finally noticed that he was holding a wooden spoon with the other. "Or you may never make it past the front door."

I smiled, nodding at the spoon in his hand and he laughed, leaning down to kiss my cheek before leading me into the dining room, stopping me just outside the kitchen's doorway.

There was a red fabric tablecloth covering the table, an open bottle of white wine sitting in what looked to be a sterling silver bucket, two engraved wine glasses sitting next to it, two unlit white candles sitting in what were also probably sterling silver candle holders and a bouquet of red roses sitting in the middle of the whole presentation.

"Oh," I whimpered, pressing my palms against my stomach, my eyes beginning to water.

"Is it too much? I can get rid of it," he said quietly, rushed.

I grabbed his wrist as he reached for one of the candle sticks and shook my head, turning around to face him again.

"No, don't." I shook my head at him, taking a deep breath and smiling shakily at him. "No one's ever done this for me before."

I watched him relax as he smiled back and reached up to brush a piece of hair out of my eyes.

"Idiots," he said simply, running his thumb over my cheek before letting his hand fall to his side again. "You deserve this and so much more."

The tears only got worse, one actually sliding down my cheek as I wrapped my arms tightly around his waist and buried my face in his chest.

"Honestly, Bella, I can make it all disappear," he said nervously, both of his arms wrapping tightly around me.

"No," I sniffled, shaking my head and resting my cheek on his chest, staring at the phone. "It's just so much more than I expected and I…"

"What? Bella, you've got to talk to me," he whispered into my ear, rubbing soothing circles on my back as I trailed off. "I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong."

"You're not doing anything wrong. You're doing everything _right_."

Too right, almost. Like this was a practiced move that he used on everyone he dated. Roses, wine, candles and dinner all probably meant the same thing to him; a night ending with a satisfying romp in his bed before he kicked me out in the morning and never called me again.

I closed my eyes tightly, burying my nose into his chest and taking deep gulps of air, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt in my hands.

I had _never_ hated Jessica Stanley more than I hated her right now. How _dare_ she ruin something that was so new and in that beautiful perfection stage at the beginning of a relationship? What gave her the right to say those things when she knew _nothing_ about either of us?

"So what's wrong? Bella, please," he pleaded, grabbing my face in his hands and stroking my cheeks until I finally opened my eyes. "You _have_ to tell me what's wrong or I'm going to lose my mind."

"Why do you want to be with me?" I whispered, fighting off the sob that threatened and watching him closely. "Why do you want _me_?"

He watched me for a few agonizing seconds before leaning down to rest his forehead on mine.

"Yesterday when we were sitting in the parking lot of Price Chopper and I was having a very small panic attack at the thought of having to go back in there," he said softly, licking his lips, "you saw it. You saw it and you took my hand," he reached behind us to grab one of my hands in his, "and you said that you were the only one that knew. You didn't laugh at me or tell me that I was just being paranoid."

He brought our hands in between us, twining our fingers together and backing away slightly to place a kiss on my ring finger.

"You make me dinner," he continued, placing another kiss on my middle finger. "You argue with me."

He laughed softly at that for some reason I didn't quite understand and kissed my pointer finger.

"You don't want to bother me with alarm clocks and you gave up your vacation time to save my serenity. You brought me pizza, chicken wings and beer."

He laughed again, shaking his head before placing one more kiss on the back of my hand and returning his forehead to mine.

"You've never treated me any differently than any of your other friends. I've never been an actor to you; I've always just been your neighbor and you have no idea how much that means to me."

He kissed me then, his lips moving softly across mine before he backed away and squeezed my hand.

"Those are only a few of the reasons why I want to be with you, Bella. I could go on if you want…" He smirked at me, holding our hands against his chest. "But I may never be able to stop and I think I'm burning our dinner."

I laughed, the tears in my eyes now there for a completely different reason as I squeezed his hand and leaned up to kiss him once more.

"Okay."

He kissed me again before untangling his hand from mine and grabbing the spoon I'd forgotten about from the table. I followed him into the kitchen, raising an eyebrow at the mess he'd made on every available inch of counter space.

I rubbed my eyes, clearing them of tears before leaning my hip against the counter and watching as he stirred what looked like spaghetti in a pot on the stove.

"Do I dare ask what you're making?"

"Spaghetti and meatballs," he confirmed proudly, looking over at me as he flicked off the burner and grabbed the handle of the pot. "I really don't know how to make much else."

I laughed at him, shaking my head as he walked to the sink and poured the noodles into the strainer sitting inside.

"I could've made something."

"No," he said quickly, shaking his head as he batted the steam away from his face fruitlessly.

I stifled a laugh and bit my bottom lip.

"It's my turn to do something for you."

"You just got me a week's vacation."

He turned and rolled his eyes at me, setting the steaming pot back on the stove before yanking open the oven door and grabbing a pair of royal blue oven mitts from a drawer next to him.

"Doesn't count." He grabbed a tray of lopsided meatballs out of the stove and set it on the burners next to the empty pot. "You do more than enough for me. It's my turn."

"If you insist."

He set the pot holders back in the drawer, closing it before turning to me, his lips pursed.

"Why would you ask me something like that?"

I shifted uneasily, biting my bottom lip and crossing my arms over my chest. Acting dumb and only prolonging the inevitable was pointless; I knew what he was talking about and he had every right to want to know.

It didn't mean that I wanted to answer it any more than I wanted to pull each strand of hair out of my head, but he had the right to know why his girlfriend of forty-eight hours already doubted him.

"I just…" I started, taking a deep breath and looking down at my feet yet again.

I'd really need to get a new pair of shoes to stare at; my worn in white tennis sneakers were really not that interesting.

"I'm not like the girls out in California. I can't be."

He was silent and I closed my eyes tightly, waiting for the same words Jessica had spoken earlier to hit my ears as they left his lips.

"Why do you think I'd want you to be?" he finally asked softly. "You are… Bella, look at me."

I shook my head, digging my fingertips into my sides as I clutched onto whatever was left of my pride.

Not that there was all that much left at this point, but there was a tiny little bit that I was still managing to cling on to.

I let out a strangled cry when I felt his hand on my chin, lifting my head and forcing me to look at him.

"You are what I've been searching for," he whispered, framing my face with his hands once he'd gotten my attention. "I didn't realize it before but now that I finally have, there's no reason to look anymore."

To any normal, secure girl, those words would've been perfect. They would've sealed whatever deal we'd silently made with each other and there would never be a need for any other stupid questions.

I am not a normal, secure girl. I never have been and I probably never will be. Dating the epitome of damn near perfection wasn't going to make that any better, either.

"You're not just saying that to make me not feel like an idiot?"

"You said you trusted me," he whispered and sounded as though he might've been in pain.

"No, Edward, I do!" I said quickly, stepping forward to close the gap in between us and grabbing onto his waist. "I do."

"Then trust me on this." He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, holding me against him. "I want to be with you. I'll never tell you anything that isn't true, and I'll never leave you for anyone else because quite honestly, everyone else has stopped existing to me." He pressed his lips against my forehead, absently trailing his fingers through my hair. "Trust me, Bella."

I wrapped my arms around his waist, closing my eyes again and taking a deep breath through my nose.

"Okay," I said weakly, swallowing hard.

"Okay," he echoed, not moving from me. "Now what do you say to some food?"

I opened my eyes, looked directly into his and nodded when I saw the slight smirk on his face. His eyes looked haunted despite the way he kept the smirk carefully in place and I wanted to kick myself for tainting what should've been an absolutely perfect night.

Yes, he did deserve more than me. He deserved someone beautiful, confident and someone who could give him everything that he'd ever need without question. I _wanted_ to be that person for him. More than anything in the world, I wanted to be the one woman in his life that he couldn't ever leave or get bored with.

But I wasn't delusional and I wasn't going to kid myself into thinking that I could be that woman for him. I knew who I was and Bella Swan had never been any of the things someone like Edward Cullen needed.

But he wanted me for now. He knew who I was and he wanted me anyway. So I'd keep my mouth shut and enjoy what parts of himself that he was willing to give to me.

I stepped up on my toes, capturing his top lip in between mine for a moment before stepping back down and answering his smirk with one of my own.

"Sounds good."

He kissed me again, his lips soft and calm against mine before slowly backing away and turning to go back to the food.

I took a deep breath, steadying myself as I leaned against the counter again and watched him silently mix the meatballs in with the spaghetti.

And then, without taking his eyes off the food in front of him, he reached out to me with his free hand, palm up. I took one step toward him, placing my hand in his and twisting our fingers together. He tugged on my hand, pulling me closer until I was tucked underneath his arm, pressed up against his side.

"Tell me if it tastes horrible, okay? I've got some Bagel Bites in the freezer that I'm a pro at sticking in the microwave."

I laughed, burying my nose into his chest and wrapping my free arm around his waist.

And in that moment, I decided that I wasn't going to let Jessica Stanley's bitterness take away from something that should be easy and effortless. Something that I'd wanted in some form or another without realizing it until a few days ago had actually happened for me and bringing him down into everything that was bothering me wasn't fair.

No, I still wasn't good enough for him and no, I probably never would be. But despite all of that, he _wanted me_. He wanted me and he made me happy and I wasn't going to let someone else determine my relationship for me.

"I'm pretty sure it's perfect," I said softly, looking up at him.

He looked down at me and smiled brightly, squeezing my hand.

"I hope you can still say that after you've tasted it."

"How can you screw this up? Come on," I laughed. "It's a simple dish."

"I've never done anything simply, Bella. I've always made things way too difficult."

"Well that's your own fault, isn't it?"

I laughed loudly when his jaw fell open and he immediately dropped the wooden spoon into the spaghetti.

"You're supposed to be supportive!" he finally managed, shaking his head at me.

"You said it! I'm agreeing to it."

"You're not supposed to!"

I laughed again, twirling out of his arms and walking into the dining room to grab the bottle of wine and pour some into one of the wine glasses.

"She insults me and then drinks my wine," he grumbled from behind me. "I see how it is."

I slowly turned on my heel, carefully balancing the glass of wine in my hand as I watched him reach into a cabinet to grab two plates and set them on the counter.

"It's very good wine," I commented after taking a sip. "Trying to get me drunk so that it's easier to get me into bed?"

He raised an eyebrow at me as he scooped a massive amount of spaghetti onto a plate.

"Would I need wine to get you into bed?"

All the muscles in my stomach seemed to turn into nothing but mush and I quickly took another sip of wine, watching him over the rim.

"No," I admitted quietly, concentrating very carefully on keeping my hands steady. "You wouldn't."

I felt a little better when he had to scramble to keep from dropping the spoon and, as calmly as I possibly could, I took another sip of wine.

"I didn't…" He licked his lips and took a deep breath. "I want you to know that I didn't invite you over for the night just to have sex with you. I really do want you to get some sleep."

The grin that lit up my face was probably very comical, but I couldn't help it. I'd thought about it, but hadn't had much of a chance to really dwell on it with Jessica's words screaming in my head.

Some things just stuck out more than others.

"I…"

He dropped the spoon back into the strainer and walked back over to me. He took the glass out of my hands and set it on the table behind me before taking both of my hands in his.

"You're important to me," he said softly. "And I don't want to rush anything between us. When the time is right…"

I nodded, shaking my hands free of his to reach up and run them through his hair, still grinning like an idiot when he placed his hands on my waist and pulled me closer to him.

"Perfect," I said quietly.

He just smiled at me, leaning forward to press another chaste kiss against my lips before turning back to the food and finally getting it to the table without anymore interruptions.

Dinner was great. It wasn't burned and even though he'd been halfway to the freezer after he'd taken the first bite to get the Bagel Bites he'd mentioned before, I'd convinced him to do otherwise.

He was nervous and it made me feel a hell of a lot better about everything. I wasn't the only one who was worried about everything we were getting wrapped up in and it felt really good to know that.

I'd insisted on doing the dishes, completely ignoring him and twisting out of his reach as he tried to grab them out of my hands. Really, it wasn't all that hard to gather everything and put it in the state of the art dishwasher he owned.

He was adamant that I not do anything for the rest of the night, though. He made me sit in the living room with a glass of wine while he put whatever we didn't eat back in the refrigerator, the remote that could've controlled half of the world in my hand. Not that I knew what the hell to do with it.

Honestly, we didn't even watch anything when he finally joined me. He had his own glass of wine but was quick to put it and mine on the coffee table before grabbing my face in his hands and firmly planting his lips against mine.

Not that I was complaining. One thing I'd realized that I _really_ loved was having his lips against mine, his tongue in my mouth and his hands either on my face or his arms around me for a prolonged amount of time.

And when I felt my eyes drooping closed without my permission, he laughed at me and cradled me in his arms, managed to grab my duffel bag on our way towards the stairs and carried me into his bedroom to plop me on his bed.

He'd kissed me once more, laughing when I locked my arms around his neck in a pathetic attempt to drag him down with me.

"Don't tempt me," he whispered, kissing my cheek before standing up straight and walking over to his wardrobe. "I'll let you get changed."

I lay back on his bed for a moment after he'd disappeared out of the room, reveling in the fact that I was not only going to be sleeping in an actual bed for the night, but I'd be sleeping in an actual bed with _Edward_.

Yawning, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and grabbed the duffel bag he'd dropped onto the floor next to me.

I rooted around in it as I set it on the bed, my face heating immediately as I realized the one outfit I'd forgotten to pack.

How did I forget to bring something to sleep in?

Oh, wait, I was too busy fuming and being emotional about my damn associate at work and what she'd said to remember that I'd actually need something to sleep in.

Sighing heavily, I set the duffel bag back on the floor and walked to the door, yanking it open and walking towards the stairs.

"Running out on me, are you?"

I jumped, grabbing onto the banister before I fell down the stairs and turned to see Edward standing in the doorway to the bathroom wearing nothing but a pair of flannel pajama pants as he leaned casually against the doorjamb.

No shirt. He wasn't wearing a shirt and the damn near perfect planes of his chest and stomach had drool pooling in my mouth.

Fuck, my boyfriend was _gorgeous_.

"Uhm," I mumbled as I swallowed, not able to tear my eyes away from every perfectly sculpted curve and bump along his torso. "I… I forgot something."

"What's that?"

My ability to speak coherently for extended amounts of time.

"Something to sleep in," I said sheepishly, laughing nervously as I forced my eyes up to meet his. "I had a lot on my mind earlier."

He snickered at me before pushing off of the doorjamb and motioning with his head towards the bedroom.

"I really need to go get something to wear."

"Bella, it's negative five outside," he laughed, walking over to me and grabbing my hand to pull me along with him. "I'm not letting you go out there."

"But what am I…?"

"I have something you can wear. Relax," he commanded, laughing when I finally let go of my death grip on the banister to follow him.

I watched as he walked over to his wardrobe again, pulling open one of the bottom drawers and coming out with a long white t-shirt with the number twenty-three in dark blue on the front.

"Did you play sports?" I asked, taking it from him when he offered it to me.

I turned it around, smiling dumbly at the 'CULLEN' that was arched across the shoulder blades.

"I tried," he laughed, shrugging. "I was the worst third baseman there ever was."

I laughed, shaking my head. "I find that hard to believe."

"Oh, trust me," he laughed again, kissing my forehead before disappearing again. "Let me know when you're ready."

I shamelessly watched the muscles ripple in his back as he walked out the door, unconsciously licking my lips slowly as he closed it behind him.

Oh, I was ready, all right.

Taking a deep breath, I quickly undressed and pulled the shirt over my head, wrapping my arms around myself and grinning stupidly.

I was wearing his shirt. And it was altogether possible that he'd never get it back, either.

"You can come in now!" I called out, biting my bottom lip as I walked over to the bed and stood next to the side he'd plopped me on a few minutes ago.

The door opened again and he poked his head in, smiling widely when his eyes landed on me.

"Hm," he mumbled, pushing open the door all the way and slowly walking over to the other side of the bed. "That works for you."

"I was thinking that you're not gonna get it back, actually."

He raised an eyebrow as he pulled down the blankets on his side, watching intently as I did the same on my side.

"Really?"

I nodded, carefully sliding one of my legs underneath the blankets and sitting down on the cool sheets, turning to look over at him.

My back and hips were already rejoicing at the feeling of something completely solid underneath me and I wanted to moan, throw my head back and bury myself into the sheets.

But I'm pretty sure that would've given Edward the wrong impression and as much as the both of us may have wanted that, it was probably too soon.

Probably. Maybe.

I watched as he slid underneath the blankets as well, pulling them over his lap and tilting his head at me.

"Really."

"I'll only agree to that if you only wear it here." He leaned over, his lips a breath away from mine as he continued speaking. "Meaning that you have to spend every night with me... starting now."

"Alarm clock," was all I managed to sputter out.

"I don't care, Bella," he whispered, gently brushing his lips across mine. "I want you here." He kissed me quickly before pulling away slightly. "For as long as you can be."

I slid my other leg underneath the covers and scooted closer to him, placing my hands on his knees over the simple black comforter.

"I do have my own house, you know."

"Yes, but you don't have a bed. And I _want_ you here," he whispered, reaching up to tangle his hand in the ends of my hair. "Plus, my shirt looks really fucking good on you."

I laughed, reaching up to place my elbow on his shoulder and tangle one of my hands in his hair.

"Feels good, too."

I heard the low moan from him and had to swallow hard, my breathing starting to speed up as I felt the slight tug on the ends of my hair, signaling that he'd curled his hand into a fist.

"We should sleep," he mumbled. "You're tired."

And as much as I wanted to dispute that, it was true. Of course, if this kept going and went in the direction I really wanted it to go, the exhaustion every part of me felt would be nonexistent.

"I can stay awake," I mumbled back, kissing him.

"You're here to sleep." He took a deep breath and his hand fell out of my hair as he backed away slightly. "Plus," he laughed breathlessly, "you're going to be here every night so we have plenty of time to… stay awake."

I chuckled, removing my hand from his hair and dropping it back onto his knee.

"You're sure the alarm clock won't bother you when I need it?"

He sighed heavily, narrowing his eyes at me. "Bella…"

"I just want to make sure!" I exclaimed, holding both of my hands up in the air. "I don't want to…"

He cut me off with his lips on mine, pushing me back onto the bed and rolling part of his body on top of mine. I whimpered, my hands immediately wrapped around his neck as I opened my mouth to his and arched my back.

"It's getting really hard to stop there," he breathed, sitting back up and pulling me with him. "So please just stay, Bella."

And really, there was no arguing with that. His eyes were pleading with me and the thought of seeing and being with him every single night until he had to leave really was turning out to be too good to pass up.

I ran the back of my hand down his cheek, nodding.

"You're stuck with me now."

He smiled and turned his head, grabbing my hand and placing a gentle kiss on my palm.

"I don't want it any other way." He leaned over again, curling his fingers around my hand as he kissed me. "Let's go to sleep."

He turned off the light and we sunk down into the bed, meeting in the middle and quick to tangle ourselves together. And as soon as I'd closed my eyes after he kissed me and whispered goodnight, I was asleep.

And I loved every single minute of it.

~*~

**Remember, if you shoot me for this, the story will cease to exist! So you can't hate me too much! *hides under computer desk anyway* Chapter nine will be up soon, I promise!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

***crawls out from underneath computer desk***

**Oh, well, okay then! Since no one has threatened to kill me or attack me, I guess I'm safe! Thanks!**

**I should bow down to you guys and kiss your feet. Honestly. I've never gotten a response like this before and I **_**love**_** it. It's almost two in the morning and no one's really appreciating my singing, but I don't care! You're all amazing. You have my undying devotion.**

~*~

***Edward***

She talked in her sleep. Most of it was incoherent, but there were the few breathy _'Edward'_s that would occasionally escape her mouth that made me want to either hide safely on the other side of the room or wake her up to finish what had sort of been started before we'd fallen asleep.

But the thought of leaving her arms, even if just for a second, was almost painful. Waking her up wouldn't have been such a _horrible_ idea, aside from the fact that she'd probably fall asleep during it.

She needed to be fully conscious when it finally happened for us.

And she needed to know that no matter how far apart we'd be in a few weeks' time, nothing was going to change the way I felt about her now.

I smoothed a hand over her hair, leaning even farther into her and pressing my lips against her forehead.

She sighed in her sleep, her arms tightening around me as she tilted her head and buried her nose in my neck.

This perfect, gorgeous, sleeping woman in my arms was mine. She was _mine_.

My arms tightened around her, the fingers of my left hand trailing up and down her side absently as I kissed her forehead again.

It was like I couldn't stop touching her. Hell, I didn't even want to attempt it.

Plus, she was safe here. No one could hurt her; I'd sell my soul if it kept her from having to deal with the kind of pain I'd seen on her face earlier tonight.

Those questions, the doubts she'd voiced about me and about us had nearly torn me in half. And when she'd asked why I wanted to be with her…

I closed my eyes tightly, taking a deep breath as I stilled my fingers against her side.

I'd wanted to ask her something along the lines of "why wouldn't I be?" but I knew that with Bella, it would only make it worse. Giving her the exact reasons why I wanted her – no, _needed_ her – in my life seemed to work for her. It hadn't stopped the searing pain that had started to slice me in two, but it had slowed it when I heard her laugh at me.

And it was bothering me that she'd even have those thoughts in her head to begin with. So I only made my own pain worse by asking her why she'd think to ask me that.

Her answer, more than the need to know why, had cut me down to my toes. I _never_ wanted her to be like the girls I'd met out in California. None of them were real, none of them held the kind of warmth Bella brought with her wherever she went, and none of them had ever affected me the way Bella had.

And when she asked me if I was only saying all of it to make her feel better, I wanted to fall to my knees. She'd said that she trusted me and hearing that she thought I was just trying to make her feel better was like someone had started using me as a punching bag.

I would never say something just to make someone else feel better. I would never lie to her just to make her feel better about something. I was better than that and most of the people I spent my time with deserved more than that.

But she said she did trust me and if I wanted her to trust me, I had to trust her, too. So I told her the truth about how every other woman really did stop existing to me because, honestly they had.

Before Bella, a girl like Jessica Stanley probably would've been the next girl I'd want on my arm for a limited time. She looked almost exactly like the rest of the women back in California, so she would've fit in perfectly if I'd ever felt so inclined to have our relations go beyond upstate New York.

But now, the thought of seeing anyone else the way I see Bella is complete bullshit.

This fragile – and now she was actually _moaning_ into my neck – woman in my arms was the only one I could even picture in my life anymore.

She'd either damaged me or made me completely whole without me noticing it.

Either way, I didn't give a shit. She hadn't run when doubts started to plague her mind and when I'd asked, she'd told me. She'd told me what was bothering her and that on its own was a very big indicator that in her own roundabout way, she _did_ trust me.

So even though it had felt at the time like she was giving in to the pressure of dating me, it hadn't felt that way as the night wore on. She'd snapped out of it once she'd gotten my answers and everything about the rest of the night had been damn near perfect.

She was in my arms, wearing one of my old high school t-shirts that had made it very hard to back away from her when she kept pressing on, and she was getting the sleep I'd wanted her to get.

Throwing my leg over hers, I buried my head in her hair and closed my eyes, breathing her in and slowly drifting into sleep.

~*~

I woke up before her, still tangled in her arms and feeling extremely satisfied about the whole damn thing.

Reaching up, I brushed hair off her forehead and gently placed my lips there before carefully untangling myself and rolling out of bed. I pulled the blankets over her, not without noticing her bare legs and the inch or so of her black panties that my t-shirt revealed from where it had ridden up during the night. I groaned softly and quickly turned away, shaking my head as I ran my hands through my hair and walked across the hall and into the bathroom.

Just as I stuck the toothbrush in my mouth, I heard the phone downstairs ringing and rolled my eyes. It had barely rung since I'd arrived and so naturally someone would choose to call first thing in the morning while I had a mouth full of toothpaste.

Still brushing my teeth, I walked downstairs and stared at the caller ID, rolling my eyes again as I saw my sister's cell phone number on the small screen.

Snatching the phone off the base, I pushed the 'talk' button and put it up to my ear.

"'Lo?" I mumbled as I walked back up the stairs.

I closed the bedroom door, my eyes lingering over Bella's still sleeping form as I did so, and walked back into the bathroom.

She needed her sleep more than she needed to hear me on the phone.

"Do you have an extra room?" her calm, bell-like voice sounded through the receiver.

"No."

She huffed and I sighed, leaning down to spit into the sink before sticking the toothbrush back in my mouth.

"Why?"

"I need to get away."

"Why?" I asked again, slowly.

"Jasper insists on beating up my models," she grumbled. "He says they're coming on to me."

I snorted, which was not an easy task with a toothbrush in my mouth.

"I need to get away for a few days."

My brother-in-law would forever think that just because my sister was small and delicate that she couldn't take care of herself. He knew better, of course, but he'd been raised in Texas and down there, husbands took care of their wives and protected them. He had yet to really grasp onto the fact that Alice was not, by any means, incapable of driving a right hook into someone's gut when they crossed the careful boundaries she'd set up.

I'd been on the receiving end of that more than enough times to vouch for it. He just refused to see it.

"You're not coming here," I clarified, spitting into the sink once more before rinsing off my toothbrush and grabbing one of the paper cups on the counter. "This is my space, Alice."

I filled the cup with water, throwing my head back and swishing it around in my mouth before spitting it back into the sink.

"Edward," she whined, her calm demeanor completely gone. "I just need a few days!"

"I don't have anywhere for you to stay, Alice," I laughed, standing up straight and throwing the used paper cup in the small trash can beside me.

"You could stay on the couch?" she offered, her voice pleading.

"Uh, actually, no," I mumbled, casting a glance at the closed bedroom door and smirking to myself. "I can't."

"And why not?"

Ah, she was getting annoyed. Good. Maybe she'd hang up on me and leave me alone.

Or she'd call mom. And then mom would call me. And then I'd end up giving in because there isn't anyone in the world that can say no to Esme Cullen.

"I just can't, Alice."

"Who is she?" she demanded.

I'd never know how my sister just _knew_ shit like that. She'd always been that way; immediately picking up on the small, insignificant things and having them pieced together before anyone else could even wrap their minds around any of it.

"Alice," I sighed heavily.

"Edward, just tell me!"

"You'll tell everyone else!"

"Not if you don't want me to."

I could practically see her batting her eyes and closed mine, running a hand down my face.

"She's my neighbor," I finally said softly.

"Bella!" she chirped, immediately chipper once again.

It didn't usually take much.

I ground my teeth together, cursing my mother up and down at the fact that she and my sister _had_ to be closer to sisters than mother and daughter and told each other _everything_.

"Yes," I said through my teeth, leaning forward and gripping the edge of the counter tightly with my free hand. "And I swear to God, if you tell anyone before I do…"

"I won't! Edward, I promise! I've never broken a promise to you."

She had a point. I'd always been closer to her than Emmett because of that. Emmett had always taken the very first opportunity to embarrass the hell out of me; Alice was always the one that backed me up.

"When did this happen?"

"A few days ago."

"I thought mom said she was dating someone else?"

"Broke up," I said quickly, opening my eyes to peer over at the closed bedroom door again.

That was her story to tell if she wanted to; not mine.

"Hm," Alice mumbled. "Didn't take the two of you long, did it?"

"Alice," I groaned, resting my forehead against the mirror and shaking my head. "It's not like that."

"So she's staying overnight with you just because?"

"He took her bed, Alice," I hissed, narrowing my eyes at my reflection. "When he left her, he took everything including her bed. She was sleeping on an air mattress and she was exhausted. She's staying with me so that she can get some actual sleep."

She was quiet and I took a few deep breaths to calm myself. Alice didn't mean any harm; she was looking out for me. It wouldn't be the first time that a girl had wanted to date me simply because they wanted the exposure more than they wanted me.

I couldn't fault Alice for being cautious, either. She didn't know anything more about Bella than the fact that she was the neighbor that helped me out when I needed it. Alice had every right to question what had happened so quickly and as much as I wanted to I couldn't blame her for it.

"You love her."

My hand slipped off the counter and I fell onto my back on the fluffy white bath mats beneath me.

That was _not_ what I had been expecting to hear from her.

"Fuck, Alice," I moaned, rolling onto my side and pushing myself up to sit on my feet. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You've never defended anyone to me quite like that before," she said softly, her voice amazed. "You're in love with her."

"You're losing it, Al. It's a little too soon for that, don't you think?"

"It doesn't take long to fall in love with someone if it's right, Edward."

"How do you know that it's right, Alice? There are so many things that…"

"And you can make it work with her because you're in love with her," she interrupted simply. "I'm never wrong about these things, Edward, and you know that."

I shook my head, bracing my hand on the sink and pushing myself into a standing position again.

"I'm an actor, you know. I could be making it sound really good."

"I'm your sister, dumb shit. I know you better than that." She sighed heavily and I rubbed my free hand over my face again. "She's different from the others."

"Yes," I said through my teeth.

"And she's ready to handle everything that'll be thrown at her when it finally comes out."

It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"Hm."

We were both quiet and I stared hard at my reflection.

I couldn't be in love with her already. It was entirely too soon for emotions like that to be put on display. We'd just barely gotten started… being in love with her was out of the question.

It was crazy for Alice to even put the notion in my head. We were having fun at this point, we were enjoying each other and the limited time we had together; this talk of love my sister was shoving down my throat was completely insane.

"I want to meet her, Edward."

"I figured as much."

"Two days," she insisted. "I'll only stay for two days and then I'll be gone, okay? It'll give Jasper plenty of time to think about things and then I'll be out of your hair."

"You cannot interrogate her, got it?"

She squealed and I had to hold the phone away from my ear so that I wouldn't go completely deaf.

"I won't! I promise, I promise, I promise! Thanks, older brother!"

"You better call me when you get your flight information set up."

"I'm flying out there tomorrow morning. I'll be arriving around six and I expect you to be there to pick me up."

"Of course you do," I sighed, shaking my head.

Trying to figure out the workings of my sister's brain would never get me anywhere except frustrated. And believing that she hadn't had this whole damn thing all planned out long before she'd called me was just wishful thinking.

"I'll see you tomorrow!"

"Bye, Alice."

"Bye!" she chirped, slamming the phone down.

I turned the phone off, setting it on the counter next to me and throwing my head back. Reaching up, I tangled my hands in my hair and took a few more deep breaths, hoping that Bella would be willing to meet the ball of energy I called a sister.

"Everything okay?"

The sound that came out of my mouth wasn't anywhere close to being normal as I jumped around to find Bella standing in the doorway to the bathroom. Her hair was everywhere and her eyes were still half closed as she stared up at me, but she still looked pretty damn perfect to me.

"Did I wake you?"

"I heard a bang," she mumbled, reaching up to scratch the back of her head and twist her lips to the side. "I think."

"I fell," I laughed nervously, letting my arms drop to my sides. "Tripped over the mat."

She snickered at me, shaking her head as she walked into the bathroom and stood next to me.

"I'm supposed to be the clumsy one, remember?"

"I guess you're rubbing off on me."

I flung one of my arms around her shoulders and pulled her against me, smiling stupidly as her arms immediately wrapped around my waist.

"We don't want that now, do we?" She yawned, leaning forward to rest her cheek on my chest. "Might upset a few people."

"I don't care," I mumbled, pressing my lips against the top of her head. "I'll take it."

"How long have you been up?"

"Long enough to have a full conversation with my sister." I sighed heavily and gently pushed her back. "How do you feel about meeting her?"

I watched as one of her eyes twitched and barely held back my laughter when she merely stared at me.

"Why?" she asked slowly.

"She's decided that she needs a few days away from her husband and coming here to annoy me would be the perfect opportunity for that, I suppose. Do you want to meet her?"

"Does she know about me?"

I nodded, reaching up with both of my hands to push her messy hair away from her face.

"I told her this morning."

"What's she like?"

"Pushy, demanding, controlling, upbeat, very hyper," I listed off her most dominate traits, carefully watching Bella's face. "Protective."

I heard her swallow and quickly pulled her back into my arms again, bending down to bury my nose in her shoulder.

"She hates me already, doesn't she?"

"What? No!"

Quite the opposite actually.

But it wasn't like I could tell her that Alice was positive that I was already in love with her. If I'd wanted her to run away screaming, though, it might've been an option.

"Is she an actress, too?"

"No, she's a fashion designer. More than half of my wardrobe has been designed by her, actually."

"Oh, great," she mumbled.

"Bella," I laughed nervously, stepping back again to frame her face in my hands and make her look at me. "All you need to do is be yourself. You don't need to change and you don't need to pretend to be someone else just for her. She's really very likeable."

"Then why does it sound like you're sending me into the Spanish inquisition?"

"I won't leave you alone with her," I compromised, stroking my thumbs over her cheeks. "Not until you want me to."

"When will she be here?"

"Tomorrow night. You'll just be getting out of work when I'm picking her up."

She bit her bit her bottom lip.

"I'll make us dinner."

I smiled brightly at her and leaned down to touch my lips to hers.

"You don't have to."

"I want to. Neither of you will want to go out to dinner after fighting all that traffic in Albany, I'm sure. Rush hour," she explained, shrugging her shoulders.

I groaned, shaking my head. I hadn't thought about that.

"Of _course_ she'd land during rush hour. Why wouldn't she?" I mumbled.

She laughed and stood on her toes to kiss the bottom of my jaw. And just that little gesture had my knees weakening as my arms dropped lifelessly to my sides.

"Do you mind if I take a shower?" she asked innocently, falling back down to her feet.

"No," I choked, shaking my head to clear it of the images I thought of at _those_ words. "Do you want breakfast?"

"I can make it when I get out."

"Don't trust me in the kitchen anymore, huh?"

She laughed and shrugged. "Well…" she trailed off, looking away from me.

"Dinner was not that bad!" I insisted, grabbing onto her waist.

"No, it wasn't. It was good," she agreed, nodding her head as she looked back up at me.

"So what's the problem with me making breakfast?"

"Do you know how to make more than scrambled eggs?"

I narrowed my eyes at her as she pressed her lips together, holding in what I'm sure was some very amused laughter at my expense.

"I make damn good scrambled eggs," I grumbled, outright pouting.

"I'm sure you do." She stretched up on her toes again to nip at my bottom lip. "But I kind of want an omelet."

My eyes rolled back in my head and I would've given her an entire damn country if she merely asked me for it.

"I can… uh… okay," I mumbled as she placed feather-light kisses on my bottom lip.

"You want one?"

"Uh huh."

She laughed, kissing me fully before walking out of my arms and out of the bathroom completely.

I started to follow her, my brain complete mush at this point and only stopped in the hallway when she walked out of the bedroom with her duffel bag in hand. I looked at it, my head titled and completely confused before she laughed at me.

"Shower, then food," she reminded me, placing one hand on my chest as she walked by.

Every inch of me visibly shivered as she gently dragged her fingernails down and across my stomach while she walked away from me. And when she closed the bathroom door behind her, I continued to stand in the hallway between the two rooms, my eyes closed tightly and doing my absolute best not to barge in there after her.

She was _way_ too good at that.

I recovered when I heard the water start and stiffly walked into the bedroom, closing the door behind me and staring down at the very serious problem that had popped up in my pants.

After having a serious talk with that part of my anatomy, I managed to get dressed and walk downstairs, my laptop bag slung over my shoulder.

I hadn't talked to Jeannie since the grocery shopping attempt and I could only imagine what kind of shit I'd managed to stir up this time.

I'd been sorting through all of the emails I tried to avoid on a daily basis for about fifteen minutes when I heard her on the stairs and looked up. Her hair was still wet, leaving little spots of water on the light blue shirt she was wearing and even though the jeans she had on now were a hell of a lot looser than the ones she'd worn out on Friday, they still had my mouth watering.

My girlfriend was fucking beautiful.

"What?" she asked when she reached the bottom of the stairs and noticed me blatantly gaping at her.

I shook my head and snapped the top of my laptop closed, smiling lazily at her.

"Nothing."

She shook her head and smirked at me, walking over to me and setting the phone on the table. Huh. I hadn't even noticed that she had it in her hand, much less been able to remember that I'd left it in the bathroom in the first place.

I quickly grabbed her waist and pulled her into my lap, laughing when she shrieked and grabbed tightly on to my upper arms.

"You have to _warn_ me when you're going to do that," she breathed.

"More fun this way."

I pressed my lips to hers, tasting the mint of her toothpaste as she quickly responded, wrapping her arms tightly around my neck and pressing her chest against mine.

"Did you sleep okay?" I whispered in between kisses.

"Mhmm," she hummed, sucking on my bottom lip and flicking her tongue across it. "I slept really well, actually."

"You talk, you know."

I almost had my tongue against hers when she abruptly pulled back. My eyes flew open to see that her face was bright red and I smirked, twisting my hands together behind her back.

"What did I say?" she squeaked, biting her bottom lip.

"It wasn't so much what you said," I started, tilting my head to the side and smirking, "as to what you _moaned_."

"No!" she whined, leaning forward and burying her face in my chest. "I'm so sorry. I thought that maybe I'd grown out of that. I mean… no one's mentioned it in a while and I…"

I laughed, leaning down to kiss her ear and grinning like an ass when I smelled my shampoo in her hair.

"Who said that I was complaining?"

"It's embarrassing!" she squeaked again, seeming to curl up into a small ball on my lap. "Did it keep you awake? Did I say anything else? Oh, God."

"Bella," I laughed, untangling my hands to rub them over her back. "It's not that big of a deal. It actually made me feel pretty damn good about myself."

"Like you need a bigger ego," she mumbled, tipping forward slightly to rest her forehead on my shoulder. "It wasn't anything too horrible then?"

I continued to grin at the wall behind her. I still loved that she managed to put me in my place. I loved that nothing major had changed just because we'd started dating.

"Just my name," I said simply, smiling softly as I watched my hands rub circles on her back. "And I do not have that big of an ego."

"Mhmm," she mumbled, sighing heavily before sitting back again. "Aside from that, did _you_ sleep okay?"

I caught her lips in between mine again. "Better than okay."

She hummed against my lips before pulling away and moving her arms from my neck to place her hands on my chest.

"Come on." I reluctantly let her up, following her as she hooked one of her hands around mine and pulled me into the kitchen. "I'll teach you how to make an omelet."

~*~

We'd spent all day in the house watching really bad daytime television or, in my case, doing everything I could not to lunge across the couch and fuse my mouth to hers for the better part of however many hours might've been left of the day.

I'd only let her leave my sight once. She'd needed to get a few more things to wear if she was going to be spending every night with me and I couldn't really argue with that. She had to work the next day and if my sister had taught me anything, it was that a woman never wore the same outfit two days in a row.

Or something to that affect.

The phone never rang again and there hadn't been any important emails that demanded my attention. She'd insisted on cooking every meal we needed to eat and after I'd poured half of the omelet mix down the front of me – twice - she'd banned me from the kitchen entirely.

She'd told me that I had the potential to be a chef's worst nightmare and when I'd almost dropped the meatloaf when I'd been allowed to remove it from the oven because she had both of her hands tied up in some kind of sauce, I'd been forced to agree with her

I had been allowed to set and clear the table, though. But that was it; I was not allowed to help her prepare and I was most definitely not allowed anywhere near the stove.

So while she was in the kitchen, I stood just outside the doorway, watching as she moved fluidly and comfortably around my kitchen. Almost like she'd always been there and knew exactly where everything was.

I couldn't say that I was opposed to the image, either. Seeing her in the kitchen, blissfully content as she mixed and minced and baked anything and everything I never would've thought of before only confirmed that I couldn't live without her.

Hell, at this point, I _refused_ to live without her. I didn't know someone like her could actually exist. I didn't know someone like her could actually exist for someone like _me_.

And as I sat in the airport the next morning, the cowboy hat and bandana firmly in place on my head as I stared unseeing at the gate my younger sister would be popping out of at any minute, I could _not_ control the smile on my face.

It had been there permanently for a few days now, actually. Ever since Bella and I had started dating, to be perfectly honest, and I never really wanted it to go away.

I leaned back in the uncomfortable blue chair in the waiting area, kicked my legs out and closed my eyes as I yawned. There were only a few other people roaming around this gate so the fear of exposure was pretty much nonexistent.

The alarm clock had us both up at six this morning, scaring the shit out of me and almost causing me to fall face first out of the bed entirely.

I'd let myself get too comfortable without hearing the damn screeching noise that was the bane of my existence on any regular day and hearing it for the first time in almost a week harshly brought me back to reality.

In fact, a list of all the things I'd already done before leaving California had flashed in front of my closed eyes before I had the common sense to actually open them.

After I'd recovered from that, I'd had to spend at least another fifteen minutes telling Bella that I really didn't mind having her stay with me before she gave up and crawled out of bed to make her way across the hallway.

Watching her walk out of the bedroom in just my old rumpled t-shirt had been the only jolt I needed to get my legs moving. I'd ambled my way down the stairs, scratching at my chest as I flicked the lights on in the kitchen and began to make her some coffee.

I'd stared resentfully at the stove the whole time, too. She'd made me promise not to touch it until she got out of work tonight, limiting my food choices to the microwavable shit I had in my freezer.

That greasy, frozen, unhealthy crap would've been good before I realized that having Bella cook my meals every night was so much better.

She'd ruined me in that respect. I'd never be able to look at Pizza Rolls with the same amount of desire as I had before.

No, instead I eyed the beautiful brunette that I'd been holding captive in my house that way.

Not that I was complaining… because I most definitely wasn't.

When she'd finally walked down the stairs, twisting her hair into a bun of some sort on the back of her head and a shy smile on her face as she walked towards me, I held out a to-go mug of coffee, kissed her goodbye and told her not to worry about my sister.

Which really only made her eyes widen before she mumbled something about chicken fajitas, made my mouth water in an entirely different manner than she had yesterday and dashed out of the house before I even had a chance to say anything more.

Since when did the word _sister_ seem to instill same fear as the word _parents_ did? Alice would be easy and Esme had been gunning for this relationship between us before I even realized that I wanted it. The only hurdles she had left to jump over were Emmett – who could really care less about who I'd decided to date anymore – and my father, Carlisle.

Neither of which were all that threatening once they opened their mouths.

I jumped when I felt my chair being kicked and looked up to find Alice, her hands on her tiny hips and her bright blue eyes narrowed in my direction. Her black hair, as usual, was sticking straight out at odd angles and amazingly, her entire outfit was wrinkle free.

Only my little sister could walk off of a six hour flight looking as though she'd be ready for a runway.

"What the hell is on your head?" she demanded.

I grinned brightly at her, stood up, gathered her in my arms and lifted her off of her feet to hug her tightly.

"Hey, baby sis!"

"You know I hate it when you call me that," she mumbled.

She sighed and relaxed against me, wrapping her tiny arms around my neck.

"Well, that's what you are." I set her back down on her feet, still grinning at her. "How much shit did you bring?"

"All of it is necessary, you lovesick moron."

"And it starts," I sighed, draping an arm around her shoulders and leading her toward the escalators. "I'm not…"

"Don't you dare say it." She pointed one manicured fingernail at me, pursing her lips up at me. "I'm right, you're wrong; deal with it."

"Don't you think you should meet her before you make assumptions?"

"Not worried about it." She grinned up at me, quickly wrapping both of her arms around my waist as we stepped onto the escalator. "Your face when I saw you said it all."

I groaned and half heartedly hugged her back, dragging her towards baggage claim once we reached the bottom of the escalator.

"Does Jasper know where you are?"

"Yeah." She waved me off, staring hard at the carousel in search of those bright pink Louis Vuitton suitcases she adored as we reached it. "I told him this morning."

I groaned, shaking my head. Whenever she left things like telling her husband that she was flying halfway across the country to the last minute, it never really went over well. It never failed to end up in Jasper flying out to wherever it was that Alice had disappeared to with a pathetic apology on his lips and a bouquet of calla lilies in his hands.

"Don't tell me that he's coming out here too."

"No." Then she dived in between the people standing in front of us to attack her bags, smiling angelically and apologizing when they grumbled at her. "He says hello."

She handed me the two huge suitcases before prancing off in front of me, looking around the airport as if she'd never seen one before in her life.

I may as well tape a sign to her forehead that screamed _tourist_ in neon lights.

"You never told me why you're wearing that thing," she picked up our conversation as I huffed my way behind her, dragging the overstuffed bags behind me.

"I have no desire to cause another commotion. Once this trip was enough."

"Ah, yes, the supermarket thing. I read about that." She waved me off again. "Where'd you get it from?"

As much as I tried to control the smile that immediately lit up my face when her I thought about her, it didn't work and Alice noticed.

She clapped her hands gleefully, skipping ahead yet again and racing towards the doors.

She was like a toddler. I have absolutely no idea how my parents had enough energy for her after they had me and Emmett. I have absolutely no idea how _Jasper_ had enough energy to deal with her on a daily basis.

Sighing and grunting as I shifted the handles of the suitcases in my hands, I followed after her, glaring at her as I met up with her.

"You couldn't have just gotten a cab?" I grumbled as we walked across the walkway when the guard standing in the middle told us to.

"And miss out on spending an entire ride back with you? I think not. We have so much to talk about."

I groaned, walking ahead of her and in the direction that I'd parked the Volvo.

Of course we did.

"And you had to land during rush hour, didn't you?"

"It was the easiest flight for me."

I looked back at her to see her rolling her eyes at me. As long as it was easy for her, the rest of the world would just have to adjust. Being the youngest and only girl in the family, my parents had let her get away with murder. Anything that she did wrong, I usually got blamed for it.

I'd called her _princess_ until I moved out of the house. Still did when she really started pissing me off. She absolutely hated it.

"Are we going to stop and get something to eat?"

She bounced up next to me, tapping her nails against each other as she grinned up at me.

"Bella's making dinner for us tonight."

Again, that stupid grin at the mere mention or thought of her was slapped across my face and Alice laughed loudly, hooking one of her arms through mine.

"Great! I can really get to know her!"

"You said no interrogations, Alice!"

"Why would I interrogate my future sister-in-law?" she asked, looking up at me and pursing her lips in annoyance. "I just want to get to know her."

"Alice," I ground out through my teeth, staring straight ahead as the Volvo came into view. "You're pushing things."

"I'm not pushing anything that isn't already in motion," she reasoned, spotting the Volvo she somehow knew belonged to me and dancing ahead of me to stand by the trunk.

"I'm not even thinking about… you're putting thoughts in my head!" I accused as I joined her, dropping her suitcases to fish my keys out of my pocket. "We just started dating. Give it some damn time."

"Why should I wait when I know what the outcome will be? You're the one dragging your feet."

"We haven't even talked about what we're going to do when I leave yet, so will you please," I started, unlocking the trunk and stuffing my keys back in my pocket, "give it some time."

"You haven't talked about it?"

"We both know it's coming." I hefted one suitcase into the trunk, groaning under the weight. "But we're just enjoying what we have right now, okay?"

"You can't push reality under the rug, Edward."

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the side of the car, looking at me disapprovingly.

"That's what I do when I come here! That's _why_ I come here!" I looked over at her, grinding my teeth together. "But Bella is too important for me to lose her so I'm going to do my damn best to make sure that something works out."

I threw the second suitcase into the trunk and slammed the lid down, leaning heavily against the back of the car and breathing heavily.

Why she thought she needed a month's worth of clothing and accessories for a two day trip was beyond me.

I watched the sides of her mouth quirk into a smile as her arms fell to her sides again.

"You're in love with her," she said simply, dancing to the passenger side door and yanking on the handle. "Stop fighting it, Edward. It won't do either of you any good."

She pulled on the handle again, furrowing her eyebrows at it before pointedly staring at my pocket.

Rolling my eyes, I dug my keys back out and hit the right button before walking over to the driver's side and climbing in.

"Princess," I grumbled as I pulled the seatbelt across my lap.

She reached over and slapped my chest with the back of her left hand, her entirely too large wedding ring catching me in the right spot and making me sputter for air.

"I _hate_ it when you call me that."

"No shit," I choked, coughing and catching my breath as I stuck the keys in the ignition.

She smiled, satisfied with herself as she wiggled around in her seat and immediately reached for the radio dial to change the station I'd been listening to.

Two days. Just _two damn days_.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Sorry for the slight delay in posting this but I've had a pretty busy week. Lots of work and then remembering that I do have a life outside of this story – it was a shock even to me at the time, yes – kind of kept me from being able to edit and finish this chapter.**

**So you guys are amazing. Completely off the charts, over the top, strawberry shortcake kind of amazing. I can't thank you all enough for reading and leaving reviews. It brightens my days considerably.**

**So, without further ado…**

~*~

***Bella***

"Bella, it's a salad. Not something you need to stab to death."

I looked up from the grilled chicken salad Rosalie had graced me with ten minutes ago to sigh at her, dropping the plastic fork down and burying my head in my hands.

Jessica's vacation had started today, earlier than originally planned, but I was not at all sad to see her go when I thought back on the last conversation we'd shared. I'd spent most of the quiet morning reorganizing books and fixing what she'd managed to screw up during the week.

There hadn't been that many people walking in the doors that day and I was reveling in the silence. There was no annoying clacking with fake nails on a keyboard, no loud high-pitched voice on the phone as she ignored everyone that walked up to the counter and definitely no need to stress myself out as I wondered about what she wasn't getting done.

I'd been happily sitting at the front desk, trying to make sense of the chaos on top of it and doing my best to completely ignore the fact that my boyfriend's sister would be in town until I needed to face it when Rosalie barged in with a take-out bag from T.J.'s Deli swinging from her hand.

And with just one look at her, all my insecurities came crashing down around me.

She was my best friend. My realistic, demanding, and blunt best friend that I couldn't hide anything from. And she'd patiently sit in front of me, not saying much of anything and definitely not leaving until I finally told her what was bothering me.

Kind of like she was doing right now.

"I'm dating him."

She was quiet again and I could hear the lettuce crunching in her mouth as she chewed on it.

"Who is this _him_ you speak of?" she asked quietly.

"All right, Yoda," I mumbled, looking up and crossing my arms on the front desk. "Edward. I'm dating Edward."

She continued to chew and stare at me, one eyebrow raised with her own plastic fork suspended in the air.

"And?" she finally asked, motioning with her fork for me to go on.

"That's it."

"What's the problem?"

"His sister is coming into town today."

"Again, and?"

"I'm not good with meeting family members!" I whined, dramatically throwing myself across the desk once I'd moved my salad. "I never have been."

"You met Jake's family just fine."

I rolled my head to the side, glaring at her as she shrugged easily at me and speared a crouton on the end of her fork.

"Please do _not_ put him in the same conversation as Edward."

She shrugged one shoulder, sliding the fork and crouton in between her blood red lips.

"Just making an observation."

"You're not making me feel any better," I pouted, sitting up again and resting my elbows on the counter. "What should I do?"

"Meet her."

I wanted to bash my head against the wall. Right about now, it would have the same effect as talking to her currently was.

"I'm making her dinner. Of course I'm going to meet her."

"Don't try too hard. You always get yourself in trouble when you try too hard."

"What if she doesn't like me?"

She shrugged again, meticulously stabbing a few leaves of lettuce on the end of her fork.

"The world won't end if she doesn't."

"My relationship might!"

She merely lifted her eyes up to meet mine as she stuffed the forkful of lettuce into her mouth.

"You're being dramatic."

"Rose, I'm nervous!"

"I hadn't noticed," she drawled sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "What makes you think that Edward will leave you if his sister doesn't like you?"

I opened my mouth and then closed it again, blinking at her as I picked up my fork again and began twirling it around on a piece of chicken.

"There's your answer. When do Ang and I get to meet him, anyway?"

I shrugged, still trying to come up with an answer to her previous question.

"We want to, you know. We haven't seen you so riled up over someone since long before Jake was even in the picture."

"I'll talk to him about it," I finally mumbled, stabbing the piece of chicken and stuffing it into my mouth, completely giving up on coming up with any type of rational answer for her. Really, I didn't have one anyway; she was right, as she so often annoyingly was. "You'll both behave, won't you?"

"I'm not going to scream at him, if that's what you mean."

I rolled my eyes, dropping my chin onto my upraised palm and staring miserably at the door.

I only had about four more hours until I needed to meet his sister. Four more hours to find some sort of composure I'd never really possessed before and meet her without seeming like some stupid hillbilly from the sticks.

He'd said that she was protective. Meaning that she probably assumed that I was only out for the fame and the fortune that came with dating her brother. Meaning that I'd have to do a hell of a job to convince her otherwise.

Meaning that I'd have to keep my foot out of my mouth until it was safe to crawl back to my own house and bury myself in the horribly uncomfortable air mattress for the next two nights.

Staying with him while his sister was in the same house was just too odd to me. That would only mean that any assumptions she might already have about me latching onto him for what his celebrity status could offer me would seem true.

I was not going to give her any reason to think something like that.

"I'll talk to him about it," I said again, sighing heavily as I looked back down at my salad.

"Just be yourself, Bella. You can't help it if she doesn't like you, but personally, I don't see why she wouldn't."

She said it quickly and quietly, not being the one to hand out compliments often.

Yes, Edward had said basically the same thing yesterday morning. Hearing it from Rosalie made me feel a hell of a lot better, though. She was more honest than anyone I'd ever known and if she had told me that I had no chance in hell, I would've gladly hid out in my house until his sister left.

Not that that would stop Edward from coming over to find me, but it was a nice thought.

"Plus, he has to have some sway with her, too. He's with you for a reason. She'll see that and she won't have any reason to say that she doesn't like you."

I nodded once, watching as she stared intently at the salad in her lap and quickly stabbed the rest of the chicken onto her fork to stuff it in her mouth.

"Thanks, Rose."

"You're welcome." She looked up at me again, offering me a lopsided smirk as she snapped the plastic to-go container shut. "What are you making for dinner?"

"I figured that chicken fajitas would be a safe route."

"Yours are the best." She stood up then, dropping the container and her fork into the trash can next to her. "I have to get back to work, but you'll call me when we can meet him."

It wasn't a question, but with Rosalie, not a lot was. She knew what she wanted and didn't hesitate to go for it. Or to demand for it. If she'd lived in the city, she would've had every major company eating out of the palm of her hand.

Instead, she chose to stay in Lake George, New York to run one of the most respected car lots in the area. With her long blonde hair, big sky blue eyes, trim figure, and impeccable business sense it hadn't been hard for her to get to the top.

I nodded, standing up as well and rounding the counter to hug her briefly.

"I will."

"And don't worry about tonight." She slung her coat over her shoulders and grabbed her purse before she walked to the door. "Your world won't end."

I rolled my eyes at her, pointing to the door and motioning for her to get out.

"Good_bye_, Rose."

She waved at me before disappearing out the door. I ran a hand through my hair and sighed heavily, shaking my head as I walked back around the counter when the door snapped shut behind her.

The bun I'd hastily pulled my hair into this morning had long since been torn out. It only gave me a bigger headache than the one I'd been previously trying to ignore. Apparently, _not_ thinking about something important only gave me a very large migraine.

But Rosalie was right. All that I had to do was be myself and everything would turn out okay. I was a good person and my intentions with Edward were purely innocent.

I twisted my lips to the side as I sat down in the chair and smirked to myself.

Okay, maybe they weren't really all that _innocent_ all the time, but all I wanted to do was be with him. The real him; not the actor that everyone else drooled over on a daily basis.

His sister couldn't fault me for that.

But when six o'clock rolled around, the miniature pep talk that Rosalie had graced me with earlier had completely worn off.

Even the annoyance I felt at finding more things that Jessica hadn't bothered to do months ago hadn't managed to keep my thoughts off of it like it had this morning.

His sister would see that I wasn't good enough for him. She would see that I wasn't anything close to what he really needed and she'd tell him that.

What made it even worse was that I didn't know what his response would be to that. I didn't know if he would take her opinions to heart and leave me like I feared. I didn't know what he would do if she said that to him and every inch of me was shaking as I locked up and walked to my truck.

I made my way to my own house with my bottom lip in between my teeth and my hands gripping the steering wheel as if it were my lifeline.

At this point, it kind of was. It was the only stable thing that I could really count on at this point in time and as I pulled in my driveway, I was terrified to get out of it.

I stole a glance at his dark house out of my rear view mirror, gnawing on my lip when I didn't see the Volvo sitting in the driveway.

I could do this. I was being irrational. She was Edward's family and if I really wanted this to go somewhere – and I _really_ did – then I would have to meet his entire family eventually.

I felt my face pale and leaned forward to rest my forehead on the steering wheel.

Oh, God. I'd have to meet the rest of his family. And if things didn't go over well with his sister tonight, then I had no chance in hell of being accepted easily by the rest of them.

It was absolutely amazing how much was riding on this one night.

"Stop it, Bella," I growled, sitting up straight and pushing my hair away from my face. "Just stop it. Everything will work out the way it's meant to."

I stared at the front of my garage door, my bottom lip once again sucked into my mouth as I slowly climbed out of my truck. I snatched my purse off the seat and ran up to the door, jamming the key in the lock and stepping inside once it was open.

I glared at my poor, lonely recliner as I dropped my purse and shed my coat on the floor before storming into the kitchen.

I had dinner to make and it needed to be damn near perfect. I couldn't afford to lose the one thing in my life that _finally_ made some sense just because I was too damn scared to take a chance.

I took a chance by kissing Edward last Friday and it ended up working out pretty damn well for the both of us.

I could take a chance with his sister by being myself and praying that she would think it was more than enough for him.

Really, I had absolutely nothing else to offer her anyway.

~*~

I'd been staring out my front windows for the past half an hour, waiting impatiently to see his Volvo drive up the road and park in the driveway across the street. The fajitas were almost done and if I paced back and forth in my living room for much longer, there really would be a hole in the floor.

I wanted to get this over with. I wanted to meet her and I wanted to show her how much her brother meant to me. I wanted her to see that I was more than a random girl from the middle of nowhere. I wanted her to see that I had real, true feelings for Edward.

I wanted her to see that I would fight for him if I had to.

Running my hands through my hair, I paced back into the kitchen and bent down to yank out the broiler.

Snapping it back in place when I figured that they needed another ten minutes, I stood back up and eyed my refrigerator.

I smiled brightly as I lunged for it, yanking open the door and immediately grabbing onto one of the beer bottles I'd bought when I'd taken Edward shopping.

Flicking off the top, I threw it in the trash can and threw my head back, swallowing as much as I possibly could without choking on it. It would at least keep me from chewing off my bottom lip and there was always the very great comfort of it taking some of the edge off.

If I told myself that I was going to be fine _one more time_, it was altogether possible that I'd hang myself from one of the many trees in my backyard.

I knew it was getting bad when I began threatening _myself_ with serious injuries that resulted in death.

I jumped and nearly choked on the beer when I heard a knock on my front door. Sputtering and coughing, I slammed the beer bottle down on the counter and caught my breath as I slowly walked back into the living room.

Wiping my mouth on the back of my hand and taking one more deep breath, I grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open, a smile immediately lighting my face when I saw Edward standing on the other side.

"Hey. What are you doing here? I'm…"

He just grinned at me before wrapping his arms around my waist, stepping into the house and fusing his mouth to mine, completely and effectively cutting off any more of my thought processes. He'd managed to fucking _perfect_ that maneuver.

My arms immediately wound around his neck and I vaguely heard the door slam behind us as he continued to walk with me wrapped securely in his arms.

I would've gladly stayed here forever. In fact, I never wanted to move. This was heaven on earth and I never wanted him to stop touching me, or kissing me or pushing me tightly up against the wall and eagerly sliding his tongue between my lips.

Every doubt, every thought, every little thing that had been plaguing my mind for most of the day disappeared, slipping through my fingers as he pulled my hips tightly against his.

I whimpered at the contact, hitching one leg up around his waist and burying one hand in his hair to press his face closer to mine. I wanted him as close to me as he could possibly get and as I pushed off the wall to flatten my chest against his, he didn't seem to mind.

One of his hands trailed up my back, cupping my neck and massaging it gently, which only succeeding in my previous whimper turning into a full fledged moan.

"Bella," he breathed, moving his mouth from mine to trail his lips down my throat.

I let my head fall back, tried to catch my breath, fisted my hand in his hair and made some sort of sound that might've been a response.

I wasn't entirely sure.

When his mouth returned to mine, the urgency and need I'd briefly tasted before were gone, instead replaced with soft kisses and gentle grazes.

"Bella," he whispered, bringing his hand from my neck to run his knuckles down my cheek.

"Hm?" I managed, barely opening my eyes and smiling stupidly at him.

"Sorry."

"Don't ruin it," I laughed softly, shaking my head and letting my hand fall from his hair to rest on his shoulder.

He smiled and leaned down to rest his forehead against mine.

"I'm not going to have a chance to do much of that for the next two days so I thought I'd get my fill now."

"And did you get your fill, Mister Cullen?"

He laughed and shook his head, grabbing my hand in his and twining our fingers together.

"I'll never get enough of you."

My heartbeat sped up and I was pretty damn amazed that he couldn't hear it. Hell, I was even more amazed that his sister couldn't hear it.

I furrowed my eyebrows at the thought.

"Where's your sister?"

"Probably still sitting in the car, waiting for me to get her luggage." He groaned and closed his eyes, squeezing my hand. "I just wanted to see you before she stole you away from me."

I laughed nervously and leaned in to kiss him again. I wasn't entirely sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

"I'm not going anywhere without you."

I watched the corner of his mouth twitch into a smile before his eyes opened and met mine.

And the look in them – one I didn't recognize but definitely wasn't opposed to – nearly took my breath away. They were so intense, so focused on my own and so damn _green_ that my legs felt weak.

Ah, hell.

I knew this feeling. It hadn't _ever_ been this intense before, but I knew what that spark in the pit of my stomach meant.

I welcomed the burst of acceptance and mind-numbing happiness and stepped up again, gently catching his bottom lip in between mine and placing my free hand against his cheek.

I was falling in love with Edward Cullen and there was absolutely nothing anyone could do about it. To hell and back with what his sister might think of me; I no longer cared.

As long as this wonderful man kept looking at me like he just had and kept his arms around me for as long as possible, the rest of the world could go straight to hell and I wouldn't give a flying fuck.

I didn't want to question myself or even try thinking logically about this. If I did, I'd reason with myself that it was too soon to be feeling like this; too soon to even be entertaining the notion of being in love with him.

And standing in my more than empty living room, tangled with him and happier than I could ever remember being, I decided that I didn't give a damn.

If this was what it felt like to _really_ be in love, then I didn't care if it was too soon. I didn't care if it wasn't logical or even possible because my heart seemed pretty content with the idea of falling in love with him.

"I should go," he whispered, backing away from me. "She'll probably kill me if I don't hurry up."

Okay, so now that he'd mentioned her again, I realized that her opinion _did_ still matter to me. And I _was_ still nervous. But it wasn't half as bad as it was when I'd walked into the house an hour ago.

"Do you think she'll like me?" I asked softly, stroking my thumb across his cheek and tilting my head to the side.

"You have no reason to worry about it." He chuckled and shook his head. "Trust me on that."

I smiled and nodded, letting my hand drop from his cheek to rest on his chest.

"Okay."

"You'll be over soon, right?"

"As soon as the fajitas are done cooking, I'll be over."

"Oh, thank God, you weren't kidding about those this morning," he moaned, licking his lips.

I laughed and gently pushed on his chest, letting my leg fall from his waist so that I could stand up straight.

"They just needed a few more minutes when I checked last. They'll be done soon."

"Good." He kissed me one more time before backing away and letting go of my hand. "I'll see you."

I nodded, standing still as he turned around and walked to the front door, opening it only to stand in the doorway.

"Edward," I laughed, wrapping my arms around myself as the cold air blew in. "I'll be there before you know it."

"Oh, no, that's not it," he muttered, looking over his shoulder at me. "She really is still in the car. She really hasn't even gotten out yet."

I laughed and walked up behind him, placing my hands on his back and gently pushing him out the door.

"Go," I laughed, still pushing until he made it onto the porch. "Get her settled and I'll be over there soon."

"Do you know that she brought two suitcases with her? _Two_!"

"Go!" I pointed to his house, still laughing as he turned to face me.

"She's only staying for two damn days!"

"Edward," I laughed, stepping out onto the porch and shivering. "Go."

He grinned and leaned in to kiss me once more before finally walking down the steps and back across the street. I quickly walked into the house and closed the door behind me, leaning back against it and closing my eyes.

Oh, yes. I was definitely falling in love with him.

~*~

The fajitas wrapped up tightly in a plastic container, I made my way across the road five minutes later with my shoulders back and my head held high.

Her opinion mattered, yes. Despite what I'd declared to myself before, her opinion of me _did_ matter. Just because I'd come to the realization that I was falling in love with Edward didn't change the fact that she could hate me and convince him to feel the same way.

It stiffened my backbone a little bit, but it didn't take away the nerves I thought had disappeared.

Everything had been so much clearer when I was in his arms.

Taking a deep breath, I walked onto the porch and balanced the container in one hand as I knocked on the door.

This was it. I could do this. I could meet his sister and I could make her see what he meant to me.

The door opened and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a frazzled Edward standing on the other side. I laughed when his eyes zeroed in on the container in my hands and stepped inside when he moved out of the way.

"You okay?" I asked quietly, reaching up to place my free hand on his cheek.

He smiled softly and leaned against my hand, closing his eyes and gently nuzzling his cheek into my palm as he nodded.

"You don't have to knock anymore, you know," he laughed, opening his eyes, taking the container from my hands and leaning down to peck me lightly on the lips. "And thank you for dinner."

"I'm not just barging into your house. And you're welcome."

He rolled his eyes, his mouth open to respond before it snapped shut when we both heard thunderous footsteps on the stairs.

"Bella!"

I jumped when I heard the high-pitched squeal that came from the doorway of the living room. I peeked around Edward - who slapped his forehead with his free hand and sighed heavily - to see a very tiny little woman with spiky jet black hair and a mile wide smile on her face standing with her arms outstretched in front of her.

I found it very hard to believe that all of that noise had been caused by _her_. But unless Edward was harboring a six foot tall fugitive in the tiny upstairs closet, I didn't have any other possible explanations.

"You're finally here!"

"Yes," I mumbled, laughing nervously and clearing my throat. "I'm finally here."

She rushed over to us, throwing her arms around my shoulders, harshly nudging Edward out of the way and pulling me down to her level to hug me tightly.

I looked over at him and he snorted at what I could only imagine was the look of absolute panic on my face.

I'm glad he found this amusing.

"Bella, this is my sister Alice," he introduced, his lips twitching as he closed the door behind me.

"It's nice to finally be able to meet you!" she squealed, squeezing me a little harder.

She didn't hate me, no; she just wanted to suffocate me before I even stepped any further into the house.

She jumped back then, hooked one of her arms through mine and dragged me into the dining room. She let go of me long enough to drop into one of the chairs and daintily crossed her legs, rested her chin in her hand and beamed at me.

"You too," I smiled, slowly sinking into the chair she'd stopped me in front of. "How was your flight?"

"Same as any other." She waved her free hand out at her side, shrugging her tiny shoulders dismissively. "How was work? Edward pointed out the bookstore you worked at as we drove by. It looks cute!"

I laughed nervously, fisting my hands in my lap and watching intently as Edward walked by us, shaking his head and mumbling on his way into the kitchen.

Ugh. Even clothed, I could practically see the muscles of his back as he walked. And although I enjoyed the thoughts that popped up in my head, his sister was sitting next to me and waiting for an answer to the question I barely remembered her asking.

"Uh, thank you," I smiled, finally looking back at her. "Work was all right."

She was grinning knowingly at me, her head tipped down slightly as she pursed her lips.

I didn't know her well enough to interpret that look and merely looked down at my lap, my bottom lip caught in between my teeth as I felt my face starting to redden. Whatever it meant, I wasn't so sure that I liked it.

"Do you two want wine or anything?" Edward asked, poking his head into the dining room as I looked up.

"Yes!" Alice stated brightly, not taking her eyes off of me. "Wine would be perfect, dear brother."

He rolled his eyes at the back of her head and I coughed to cover up the laugh that wanted to make its way out of my throat when he disappeared back into the kitchen.

"This place is gorgeous," Alice continued, her eyes trained on mine when I looked back at her. "I can't believe I never got over here before."

"There's a reason for that!" Edward called.

She rolled her eyes this time, sighing heavily and shaking her head as if he were the most ignorant person on the planet.

"He's just selfish," she whispered loudly, leaning in to me. "Has to keep everything to himself. Including you! If I hadn't decided to come here, I probably never would've met you."

"Oh, well," I mumbled, twisting my hands around.

What could I say to that without sounding like a pretentious snob? "Sure, you would've, Alice! Edward would've taken me to meet all of you as soon as I browbeat him into it!"

For some reason, I didn't think that would've gone over very well.

"What are you doing for the holidays?" she asked abruptly, sitting up straight. "Christmas is coming up soon and then the New Year." She sighed happily, tilting her head to the side. "I _love_ the holidays."

"I'm going to see my father and stepmother for Christmas," I offered, shifting uneasily in my seat and biting my bottom lip again.

"And for New Year's Eve?"

I shrugged one shoulder, smiling sadly at her.

The one person I'd want to spend New Year's Eve with would be in Washington with his family and friends. The thought of having to watch Angela and Ben and Rose and one of the few men she kept on speed dial for occasions such as New Year's Eve sticking their tongues down each other's throats when the ball dropped while I stood off in a corner with my glass of cheap champagne didn't really appeal to me all that much.

"Not sure," I replied softly.

"Hm," she mumbled, letting her hand drop to the table top as she regally lifted her head. "Do you have either of the two days that I'll be here off?"

Trying to keep up with her in conversation was proving to be a very difficult task to accomplish. She was jumping from topic to topic so quickly that it felt like my head was spinning.

"Uhm, no," I said quickly, shaking my head and biting my bottom lip again. "My associate is away on vacation and there's no one else to run the store."

"She left early, didn't she?" Edward demanded, his voice accusing as he poked his head out of the kitchen once again.

I nodded, sighing heavily and shrugging.

"I really wasn't all that upset about it. The less I see of her, the better my days at work are."

"But you don't have a day off." Alice shook her head in disbelief, briefly throwing her hands in the air. "How can you function without a day off?"

I looked over at Edward and he grinned at me before disappearing back into the kitchen.

_What_ was he _doing_ in there? All he needed to do was put the damn fajitas on a plate and stick them on the table. It should've taken five seconds tops; it was taking him close to five _minutes_ and I was _drowning_ out here.

"Very carefully," I said, laughing quietly and looking down at my lap again.

"Mhmm," she mumbled. "What time do you get out of work?"

"Most of the time, I'm out by six but for the better part of this week, I'll probably be staying until seven or seven-thirty."

"How come?" she demanded. "That's entirely too late for anyone to be working."

"It's a two person job that I'm doing by myself this week. I have to be downstairs at all times and when I can finally lock the doors for the night, I'll have to go upstairs and finish all the paperwork that didn't get done."

She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and outright pouting at me when I looked up again.

"That leaves us no time to go shopping!"

I heard Edward bark out a laugh from the kitchen and narrowed my eyes in his general direction.

He knew that was coming. He'd been _waiting_ for it. The way he laughed said it all.

"I don't… uh, I don't shop, Alice."

She sighed heavily and reached over to gently pat my shoulder, the look on her face sympathetic as she nodded.

"Honey, I can tell."

I grabbed the hem of my old t-shirt and pulled on it, nervously chewing on my bottom lip.

"You're beautiful, of course," she said quickly, shooting a bright smile at me as she placed her hand back on the table. "But there's so much I could…"

"Dinner!" Edward shouted, gliding into the kitchen with the fajitas in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. "Shut up and eat, Alice."

"I wasn't being mean, Bella. Honest!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide and innocent. "I just…"

"Shut up and eat," Edward repeated, setting the plate and wine in the center of the table before disappearing back into the kitchen.

I wanted to curl up in a corner and die. I'd been so preoccupied with making dinner and trying to keep myself calm under pressure that I hadn't thought about my plain jeans and boring t-shirt. Of course Alice, the fashion designer, would expect something better from her brother's girlfriend.

"I didn't mean to offend you," she offered quietly. "It's just a habit, you know?"

I offered her a shaky smile and nodded. "It's okay."

She smiled back at me and nervously began chewing on the corner of her mouth, one hand going up to her hair to gently pluck at one of the spikes.

Edward walked back into the room, one hand balancing plates and the other carrying three wine glasses.

When he set the glass and plate in front of me, I tried to offer him a reassuring smile. It didn't work, of course, and he quickly grabbed my hand to squeeze it gently before letting it go and sitting down across from me.

I should've stayed holed up in the house for the rest of the night. We wouldn't be sitting in an uncomfortable awkward silence if I hadn't shown up. And as much as he'd probably knock on my door when I didn't, he'd eventually get tired, freeze and give up. I'd have hell to pay when I finally did open the door, but by then Alice would be safely on a plane back to Washington and I wouldn't be sitting here feeling inadequate.

I was the first to grab the wine and pour it into my glass, setting the bottle back down and waiting for the two of them to take what they wanted of the fajitas before I did.

I suddenly couldn't wait to get back to my air mattress.

~*~

Dinner went as well as could be expected. Alice eventually started rambling and jumping from topic to topic again and I did my best to keep listening.

My wardrobe was one strike against me; I didn't need to add that I didn't listen to the list I was sure she was keeping in her head.

Edward and Alice argued like any normal brother and sister and I even found myself giggling at times. Alice had insisted on telling me some horribly embarrassing stories about what he was like when he was younger and I couldn't help but laugh.

He'd glared at her through most of the night, his face turning beet red as she told me about how he'd jumped into a lake and had lost his swim trunks the minute he belly flopped into the water. She had pictures that she promised to show me when she could wrestle them from their mother and he threatened to return the new Louis Vuitton purse he'd bought her for Christmas.

She'd winked at me and then calmly finished her wine, batting her eyelashes at Edward when he continued to glare at her.

By the time ten o'clock rolled around, I was having a really hard time keeping my eyes open. Being stressed out for the better part of two days was finally taking its toll on me and if I didn't get to sleep soon, I'd never have the energy to go into work in the morning. The two and a half glasses of wine I'd had throughout the night probably weren't helping the situation much, either. My head was starting to swim and it had nothing to do with Alice's conversations.

"All right," I yawned, stretching my arms over my head. "I guess I'd better get going."

Edward snapped his head in my direction, losing the staring contest Alice had roped him into about two minutes ago, one eyebrow raised as he propped his chin in his hand.

"Where?"

My arms fell to my sides and I furrowed my eyebrows together, tilting my head.

"What?"

"Where are you going?" he asked simply.

I blinked at him.

"Home," I said slowly.

"Why?"

Did I miss something? Why wouldn't I go home? He had company and it would be rude of me to stay. It would give Alice the wrong impression and I'd already decided that I wasn't going to stay for the next two nights. I'd accepted it; I thought it was common knowledge.

Apparently, I thought wrong.

"To go to sleep," I said just as slowly, not able to stifle the yawn that crept up on me.

He motioned with his chin toward the stairs.

"There's a perfectly good bed up there. In fact, I believe that you've got a few of your things up there as well."

My face burned and I started chewing on my bottom lip again, laughing nervously as I played with the bottom of the wine glass.

Great. He'd just said everything I was trying to avoid saying in front of his sister without even thinking about it. I didn't even want to _know_ what she thought of me right now.

"I just… uhm…" I mumbled, beyond mortified as I kept my gaze firmly on the wine glass.

"I'm going to go take a shower," Alice declared, snatching her wine glass off the table before standing up and practically dancing up the stairs. "Nice to finally meet you, Bella."

"You too, Alice."

I kept my head down, intently watching my fingers as they traced the base of the glass.

"Bella," he said once we heard the bathroom door slam closed.

"Yeah?" I asked, my voice thick.

Oh, great. On top of being exhausted and slightly buzzed _because_ of my exhaustion, I was going to start crying. Absolutely _perfect_.

There was no fucking way that I was ever going to meet the rest of his family. Especially not if that night had the potential to turn out like this one was. No. It wasn't happening.

"Bella," he whispered and I watched as one of his hands closed over mine. "Look at me."

I shook my head fiercely, pressing my lips together tightly as he tried prying my fingers away from the wine glass.

He moved his hand from mine when I wouldn't let my fingers wrap around his like they should've and I heard his chair scrape against the wood as he stood up, his footsteps clearly indicating that he was walking over to me.

He bent down next to me, pushing my chair back and forcing me to look down at him when he gently grabbed my chin.

"What did I do?" he whispered, his eyes searching mine.

"Nothing," I squeaked, sniffling pathetically.

"I did something. I said something that upset you."

He wasn't going to give up on this. I should've known that he wouldn't, but there was a little pinprick of hope somewhere inside of my heart that had hoped he might. It was embarrassing enough as it was.

But I sighed out a shaky breath and sniffled again.

"I don't want her to think that I'm sleeping with you already or that I'm with you just because of what you do for a living. I didn't want her to think that I was just trying to latch onto you."

"She doesn't. Bella," he whispered, standing up and pulling me with him to wrap me tightly in his arms. "She doesn't think anything like that. She knows that it's different with us." He pressed his lips against my temple, rubbing my back. "Why would you think that?"

"You said she was protective," I whimpered, burying my face in his chest and loosely wrapping my arms around his waist. "I just thought…"

"No, Bella." I felt him shaking his head and closed my eyes tightly. "Is this why you were so nervous about meeting her?"

I nodded, closing my eyes.

"You had nothing to worry about," he whispered, grabbing my face in his hands as I opened my eyes again. "She knows that it's not like that with you. In fact, she knew the minute she saw me at the airport."

I blinked at him. "What?"

He laughed nervously and pushed hair behind my ear, taking a deep breath.

"I was thinking about you when she showed up," he said softly, leaning down to rest his forehead against mine. "She said that she knew you were different by the way I was smiling."

My heart melted and I smiled shakily, swallowing hard as I leaned up to gently press my lips against his.

"Yeah?"

He smiled and nodded, gently nudging his nose against mine as I stepped down. "Yeah. Stay, Bella."

"I have to get up pretty early."

He sighed heavily and rolled his eyes.

"You've really got to let that go."

"I just want…"

"And I want _you_," he interrupted softly, "here, with me, for as long as you possibly can be. I don't care about alarm clocks or my sister being in the same house with us. I don't want to let you out of my sight until I absolutely have to."

I reached up to run my hands through his hair and kissed him again, taking that one step toward him that closed the space between us to press myself against him.

What sane woman was really going to say no to _that_?

"Go," he laughed against my lips, running his hands down my sides and gently pushing my hips away from his. "I'll be there soon."

"Not soon enough," I mumbled, nipping at his bottom lip.

Oh, yes, I'd seen the reaction I got from that the other day and there was absolutely no way that I wasn't going to use it to my advantage as often as possible.

"She's gonna wanna talk," he shivered, his fingertips digging into the hips he'd been pushing away from him a second ago.

"What more could she _possibly_ have to say?"

Good God the woman hadn't stopped talking since I walked in the door. I couldn't fathom that she'd have something entirely new and exciting to say that she hadn't already touched on throughout the night.

"You'd be surprised," he mumbled, capturing my lips with his again. "Go get some sleep, Bella. I'll be there soon."

"Promise?"

I felt him grin against my lips and answered with one of my own, linking my hands together behind his neck.

"I solemnly swear," he whispered, sucking my top lip into his mouth and running his tongue across it, "to be there half an hour after she's out of the shower."

"Not good enough."

"You've never tried getting Alice to go to sleep."

"Twenty minutes," I bargained, touching the tip of my tongue to his.

"Or what?" he mumbled, darting his tongue into my mouth before kissing my bottom lip softly.

"Or I'm never wearing that shirt again."

He groaned softly and sighed heavily, placing small, quick pecks against my lips.

"Twenty minutes it is."

I laughed and finally fused my mouth to his, my tongue quickly finding his as his hands splayed out on my back and he pressed me even closer to him.

I think I might have died. Because there was no way that a day like I'd been having could turn out ending this right.

But if this is what it felt like to die, then I could spend the rest of eternity wrapped up tightly in Edward's arms and honestly, truly not give a good god damn about anything else.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Before I get started on my gushing and adoration for all of you, there's something I must address.**

**I know that some of you are frustrated that Bella and Edward have not had sex yet, but there is a reason for that. I don't feel like it's the right time for them at the current moment, but I promise that it **_**will**_** happen. It won't be happening for a few chapters yet (I don't have an actual timeline planned out) but it **_**will happen**_**. I'm sorry if it annoys you or frustrates you or takes away from what you think my story should be, but this is the way it needs to happen. So please be patient with me and I promise that it'll happen.**

**Okay. Now…**

**You guys are amazing. I'm still singing and desperately craving strawberry shortcake because of all of you. I **_**love**_** all of your comments and knowing that you're enjoying it as much as I am.**

**Oh, and this chapter is sixteen pages long by the way. Enjoy!**

~*~

***Edward***

I groaned and slowly rolled away from Bella and onto my other side as the alarm started going off the next morning.

The twenty minutes I'd promised her last night had turned into thirty and then forty and then an entire hour as I sat down in the dining room with Alice, letting her yap on and on about how great Bella was and how she'd stuck her foot in her mouth and felt really bad and blah, blah, blah.

I'd honestly stopped listening when she started going on about what Jasper did on a daily basis to piss her off. When she was done with that list, she then went on to tell me about what he did to apologize.

I had never realized how tightly she had him wrapped around her tiny little fingers until that moment and I prayed to God that I would never be as bad as that.

I was getting there, but I _really_ hoped that I'd never have to buy Bella an entire house just to make up for something stupid that I'd done.

Yes, a house. And it wasn't really a house, either. They were now the proud owners of an entire castle in Switzerland.

I _had_ managed to escape when the twenty minutes were up, though. I'd walked upstairs long enough to use the bathroom and was armed with a perfectly good excuse when Bella questioned me to find that she was already asleep. On top of the blankets, on her back, wearing just my old t-shirt with her hair fanned out around her and one of the most peaceful looks I think I'd ever seen on her face.

It had been very hard to close the door and walk back downstairs to finish talking to my baby sister.

Then _finally_ after an hour, Alice yawned. And that had been all it took to make her pop up from the chair and shuffle her way into the living room, throwing a last minute "Goodnight, Edward" out over her shoulder.

I'd never run up those stairs so damn fast before.

And I'd been peacefully sleeping with the woman who continued to breathe and moan my name in her sleep on occasion until that damned alarm clock began incessantly beeping at me.

I blindly began swinging my arm out next to me, hoping that I was at least in the vicinity of the alarm clock when I felt Bella press herself against my back and reach over me to shut it off.

"Go back to sleep," she whispered into my ear, pressing a kiss to the base of my jaw.

"No," I mumbled, yawning and grabbing her arm to wrap it around me before she could move too far. "I should get up."

"It's five in the morning. Go back to sleep."

I groaned, yawning again as I stroked the back of her hand with my thumb.

"Christ, Bella. The sun isn't even up yet."

She laughed drowsily and kissed my jaw again.

"I've got a shipment of books coming in this morning. I need to be there early."

I made some sort of noise in acknowledgement, squeezing her hand before finally letting her get up.

My body wasn't going to cooperate with me no matter how much I wanted it to so I grunted when she got out of bed and rolled back over, burrowing into the warm spot she'd just left.

I heard the water in the bathroom start a few minutes later and argued with myself for the next fifteen minutes about making my body move. All I had to do was roll over, put my feet on the extremely cold hardwood floor and stand up. That was all I needed to do.

Sinking my nose into the pillow Bella used at night and inhaling the scent of her shampoo wasn't really helping me out any.

She'd ended up bringing over her own shampoo and all the girly things she apparently needed to use in the morning, causing me to stand in my bathroom for ten minutes every morning trying to figure out what she needed a puffy mesh sponge thing for.

I'd never understand women and their grooming habits.

But I didn't mind it. For all I cared, she could move everything she still owned over here and I wouldn't give two shits about any of it.

At least there was a bed over here. And I was over here. And I wanted her wherever I was for as long as fucking possible.

I stayed where I was even after I heard the water heater shut off and listened as Bella shuffled quietly down the stairs when she was finished in the bathroom a little while later.

Yawning yet again, I stretched and finally made myself roll over and put my feet on the floor. She was up and I should be, too. I wanted to kiss her before she went off to work and ask her if she had plans for lunch.

I'm sure Alice would enjoy that.

Standing up, I bent backwards, stretching my arms above my head again before walking out of the bedroom and into the hallway.

I stopped when I heard Alice's voice and pursed my lips, narrowing my eyes slightly.

She was still intruding on my time with my girlfriend. Just because she was staying on the couch and had always been one of those cheerful morning people didn't mean that she could steal the few precious moments I'd have with an unstressed Bella for the majority of the day.

"Bella," Alice's clear, quiet voice floated up the stairs. "I want you to know that I didn't mean to offend you last night."

I smirked and shook my head, listening intently to the burgeoning conversation below me.

I heard Bella stirring her coffee, the spoon clanging against the sides of the mug. I smiled softly and leaned my head against the wall as well.

It was nice to know that she was making herself comfortable in my home. I liked that she took it upon herself to either make the coffee or pour herself a cup without thinking twice about it.

"It's okay, Alice."

"No," she sighed heavily. "It's not."

"Alice…"

I almost snorted. If Bella really believed that she'd be getting out of the house without hearing my sister's full fledged apology, she was out of her mind.

"You mean a lot to him, Bella."

They were both quiet and I closed my eyes, holding my breath as I silently cursed Alice up one side and down the other.

She had a very bad habit of saying entirely too much at the wrong times. All the time, actually and I really didn't want her to blurt out what she thought I felt for Bella.

I was standing up straight, very much intent on walking my ass down those damn stairs to rudely interrupt whatever might be flowing out of Alice's mouth next when I heard Bella's voice again.

"He means a lot to me, too, Alice."

And the smile on my face was impossible to stop from happening. Relaxing slightly, I leaned back against the wall and kept listening for any indications that I'd need to break up the conversation.

"It… uhm…" She laughed lightly. "It happened so fast with him, you know?"

"Is that bad?"

She was quiet again and I felt my heart drop into my stomach as my hands tightened around my arms.

"No," she said softly, almost too low for me to hear it. "God, no. Alice, your brother has… I've never felt like this for anyone before."

The smile was back and my heart was back in my chest where it should've been, the death grip I had on my arms loosening as I rested my head against the wall again.

"It's been really hard for him to find someone that wasn't out to wring him dry and leave him. He's had a really hard time connecting with anyone else."

I rolled my eyes, turning to press my back against the wall and slowly slid down it, stretching my legs out in front of me and placing my hands on the floor on either side of me.

"But when he talked about you on the phone and then when I saw him at the airport with that stupid hat on his head," she laughed softly and I could picture her shaking her head, "thinking about you, it was pretty obvious that you were different."

Once again, they were both quiet and I leaned my head back, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.

"And when I finally saw you two together, it was even more obvious. He has real feelings for you, Bella."

Complete silence covered the house and I wanted to slam my head back against the wall as hard as I could.

I was going to staple her damn lips together. It was the only way I could be sure that she wouldn't say anything more.

"I uhm…" I heard Bella clear her throat and tilted my head toward the stairs, listening carefully, "I'm falling in love with him, Alice."

My mouth dropped open and every muscle in my body turned into something close to molten liquid. My back was almost on the floor before I realized that I'd been sliding even further down the wall and I let it happen, rolling over onto my stomach and peeking through the spaces in the railing to see that they were both seated at the dining room table.

Bella had her hands wrapped around her coffee mug, her bottom lip in her mouth and her eyes shifting from the mug and back to my sister cautiously. Alice's back was to me, but I could see that every inch of her was stiff and tense.

I swallowed hard, gripping the edge of the top step and pulling myself a little closer to the railing.

"Could you answer one question for me really quickly, Bella?"

She nodded, staring down into her coffee and chewing on her bottom lip.

I'd really need to try convincing her to stop doing that. Her lips were so damn perfect and if she chewed on them much more, she'd eventually just chew them off.

"He said that you broke up with your boyfriend."

Bella nodded again, sparing a glance up at Alice before looking back to her coffee again.

"I assume that was recently?"

Once again, Bella's head bobbed in a positive answer.

"My brother isn't just a rebound guy to you, is he? You're not using him to get over someone else?"

"No!" Bella said quickly, her eyes wide as she looked up at Alice again. "No, Alice, God no! I'm with him _for_ him. Jake's out of my life; he's gone. I _want_ Edward. I've never wanted anyone else like this."

Even though my bones were still mush and my mind was still running a million miles a minute at those words – that beautiful, gorgeous, stunning _"I'm falling in love with him"_ confession – I still managed to smile like a dumbass.

It even managed to stave off the incredible desire I felt to attempt murdering my sister for about a second.

Alice nodded, lifting her chin regally as she sipped off of her black coffee.

And just that little gesture had me wanting to lunge at her, wrap my fingers around her scrawny neck and begin strangling her. Wasn't she the one that had reassured me that she knew that Bella wasn't like that? Wasn't she the one that had been declaring that I was in love with her yesterday afternoon?

What happened to all of that?

Just as I was beginning to pull myself up when I felt that my bones had started to solidify once more, I heard Bella's sharp intake of breath.

"I'm not like any of the ones he's dated before," she started quietly, splaying her hands on the table and staring down at them, "I'm not rich or famous and I don't really have all that much to offer him."

I narrowed my eyes at her, sitting on the top step and staring hard at her. At this point, I didn't care if she saw me. She was supposed to be past all of this; she was supposed to know better.

"But nothing can compare to the way I feel when I'm with him," she said softly, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. "The rest of the world disappears when I'm with him and he's nothing more than my boyfriend. And I know that it won't always be that way because he's got a life to get back to pretty soon, but I know that I'm going to do whatever I can to make it work. I care about him, I'm falling in love with him and I'm not going to lose him."

There was a slight pull in my chest, like my heart was demanding that I walk down the rest of the stairs and hold onto the beautiful brunette who had just declared that she was falling in love with me.

"It's not that I don't trust you, Bella," Alice started just as softly, reaching one hand out to place it over Bella's. "I just don't want to see my brother hurt."

"And I'm not out to hurt him, Alice. I'm gonna try not to, but I'm not perfect."

She shrugged one shoulder and I leaned forward, resting my elbow on my knee and my cheek in my hand as I smirked lazily at her.

Ah, if only she could see the way she looked to me, she wouldn't be saying or thinking anything like that.

"I never want to hurt him."

"I'm sorry for prying or coming on too strong."

I rolled my eyes and barely resisted the urge to scoff. That was putting it mildly.

"You're protecting your family." She shrugged one shoulder again, lifting the coffee cup to her lips. "It's nice to see."

"I do like you." Alice laughed then, that light tinkling sound that she'd inherited from our mother. "And I really do feel bad if I offended you or hurt you in any way last night or this morning."

"So we'll start over." Bella sat up straight, squared her shoulders and held out her hand. "It's nice to meet you, Alice. I'm Bella and I'm falling in love with your brother."

I grinned when Alice laughed and stood up, bypassing Bella's hand to reach out and hug her tightly. Figuring that the questioning was finally over, I stood up and started down the stairs.

I met Bella's eyes as she looked up and smiled widely, walking over to her when Alice sat back down and gently kissing her cheek.

"How are my girls this morning?" I asked cheerfully as I walked into the kitchen.

"Fine," Bella called out behind me.

I smiled smugly to myself when I heard the smile in her voice and grabbed a mug out of the cabinet.

"Why are you so happy?" Alice demanded. "You hate mornings."

I poured myself some coffee and walked into the kitchen, sitting down next to Bella and leaning back in my chair, grinning.

"They're getting better," I said cheerfully, raising the mug to my lips.

"Shit!" I jumped when Bella shouted, immediately leaning forward and slamming my mug on the table. "I have to go!"

My heart slowed and I began breathing easily again. It was absolutely amazing how one simple shout from her could make me paranoid.

She jumped up from her chair, grabbing her empty coffee mug and sprinting into the kitchen to place it in the sink.

"I'll see you guys later."

She walked back over to me, planting a kiss against my cheek and absently placing her hand on my shoulder as she did so.

"What time do you eat lunch?" I asked, quickly reaching out to hook my arm around her waist.

"Whenever," she shrugged, trying to wiggle out of my grasp. "I have to go!"

She was laughing as she finally pushed my arm off of her and quickly walked into the living room. I jumped up from the table, ignoring Alice's smug look as I followed after her.

"We'll come in around one-thirty, okay?"

She stopped struggling with her coat and turned to me, her head tilted before she smiled and walked over to kiss me. My arms immediately wrapped around her waist again, suddenly not at all willing to let her go.

"Sounds perfect."

"Have a good day," I mumbled, kissing her again.

"Yeah, thanks," she scoffed, sighing heavily even as she surrendered one more kiss. "Let me go."

"Why do you wanna leave me, Bella?" I whispered, smiling as I brushed my lips against hers.

"I don't _want_ to," she whispered back, her arms lazily reaching up to loosely circle my neck. "But not all of us are highly paid actors."

"Low blow," I mumbled, gently kissing her top lip.

"But true." She kissed me again, her arms falling from around my shoulders as she finished shrugging into her coat. "One-thirty?"

I nodded, smiling as I finally let her go and watched as she reached out to grab her purse and keys from the table next to the door.

"We'll be there."

"You better be."

She grabbed the doorknob and flung the door open, taking one step forward before turning back around and kissing me again.

"Bye," she whispered, kissing my cheek and turning to disappear out the door.

"Bye Alice!" she called over her shoulder before the door slammed shut behind her.

I watched through the window as she ran across the road and immediately jumped into her truck, taking off a few seconds after she'd started it.

"Did you hear everything you wanted to know?" Alice's calm voice came from the kitchen.

I continued to stand at the window, staring out at Bella's empty driveway. I wasn't going to question _how_ she knew that I'd heard everything the two of them had said a few minutes ago. It would probably only confuse me, make me wonder what rock my parents had found her under and would ultimately get me nowhere.

"What was with the inquisition, Alice? You promised."

"None of that was for my benefit, Edward."

I turned around slowly, walking back into the dining room and plopping down in my seat, crossing my arms over my chest and eyeing her from across the table.

"What?"

"Well, okay," she sighed, leaning her elbows on the table and picking up her mug to hold it in between both hands, "it was a little for my benefit. But honestly, I don't know how the hell she didn't hear you up there."

"I was not that loud."

"I heard you."

"You hear everything," I mumbled, pouting slightly.

She nodded in acknowledgement, leaning back in her chair and grabbing her coffee mug, mimicking my position before taking a sip.

"It sounded like you were squirming around on the floor."

I eyed her again, drawing my eyebrows together as I lifted the mug to my lips and slowly sipped off of it.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"You're pathetic. I don't know what she sees in you, you know."

"Thanks," I drawled, crossing my ankles underneath the table.

"She's got a good head on her shoulders, she isn't living in a fantasy land like that one blonde psycho you dated about a year ago, she seems to know what kind of a dumbass you are and she's falling in love with you anyway."

I grinned and leaned forward, resting my mug back on the table and watching her.

I'd chosen to ignore the _dumbass_ comment. I was focusing more on the whole _love_ part again.

"What's the difference?"

"The difference between Bella and the psycho?"

"No!" I rolled my eyes and ran my hands through my messy hair, sighing heavily. "Between falling and being."

"In love?"

I closed my eyes tightly and moved my hands from my hair to smack them against my face.

One more day. One more day and she was back on a plane headed for Washington where I wouldn't have to deal with her until the twenty-second.

"Yes," I said through my teeth, loudly dropping my hands onto the table and staring at her. "What's the difference?"

"Not much."

"But there _is_ a difference."

"Have you _never_ truly been in love, big brother?"

She narrowed her eyes at me, tapping her wedding ring against the side of the mug and studying me carefully.

"No," I said evenly, leaning back in my chair to cross my arms over my chest again. "I haven't."

It was the truth. Sure, there had been a few girls that I'd gotten close to and a few more that had the potential to be something more, but none had come even close to being in love. And then there were the others that wanted nothing more than exposure and a jumpstart to their own career, merely using me for whatever they could before walking out of my life without a backwards glance when they finally got that call from that agent they'd been looking for.

I'd just started to accept that it wasn't meant to be for me. Being completely and totally consumed by someone and trusting someone else enough to give up a large part of myself had stopped mattering to me all that much.

At least, it had until now.

But this wasn't love; what Bella and I had wasn't love yet, right? She said she was _falling_, not that she was _there_ so there had to be a difference. And if Alice would just tell me what it was, maybe I'd be able to figure something out.

"Well, that explains a lot."

"Would you just tell me?" I snapped, narrowing my eyes at her. "I wanna know what I have to do to get her there."

"Get her where?"

"For someone who thinks she knows everything, you're amazingly dim sometimes."

"Why do you want her to be there?" she asked casually, sipping from her mug again. "If you're so hell bent on not being in love with her yet, then why does it matter?"

"It just does!"

She raised an eyebrow at me, finishing off her coffee before setting the mug on the table and leaning forward.

"Admit it, Edward."

"There's nothing to admit!" I screeched, throwing my hands out at my sides.

She traced the rim of her mug with her pointer finger, thoughtfully tilting her head to the side as she continued to watch me.

"Okay," she said simply, shrugging easily and getting up, grabbing her mug and walking into the kitchen.

I watched her, my eyes narrowed as she stuck it into the dishwasher and walked over to the refrigerator.

"So are you going to tell me what the difference is?"

"Nope," she stated, popping the _p_ as she pulled out a carton of eggs and walked to the stove.

"Why not?" I growled, crossing my arms over my chest again.

"You'll know the difference when you feel it. Until then, I'm not saying another word about it." She bent down and grabbed a pan from the bottom cabinet, snapping it on the stove and grabbing the cooking spray from the top cabinet. "Would you like some eggs?"

"No, I would like for you to tell me the difference!"

"Sucks for you," she sang, tilting her head as she flicked the burners on and grabbed an egg.

"You're infuriating!" I exclaimed, standing up and stomping up the stairs.

"I'm supposed to be!" she called out after me.

I walked into the bathroom and slammed the door, leaning back against it and glaring at the shower in front of me. My eyes landed on the puffy mesh sponge thing that Bella had hanging off the shower caddy and I felt my whole body relax.

I may not know what it was right now, but I knew that I was feeling _something_ for Bella.

A lot came with being in love with someone. I knew that much. Expectations, dependence, and the sudden complete inability to think for myself without involving someone else into my thoughts wholeheartedly.

Was that something I'd been doing? Was I already incorporating Bella into everything I did and depending on her?

I began to pace back and forth in the small space, one hand in my hair and the other stuffed into my pajama pocket.

Of course I depended on her. She cleared my driveway out when it snowed, she made me dinner when she knew I was hungry, she kept me company when I was lonely and she was just _there_ when I needed her to be.

She knew what I did for a living and had gone to great lengths to make sure that it was never a big issue between us. She'd even given me a damn cowboy hat to use when we went shopping, thinking so far ahead that she'd grabbed a bandana to cover my hair with.

No one else probably would've even given it a second thought.

But Bella did.

Because she cared about me.

Because she was falling in love with me and wanted to protect me from the crazy screaming fans I'd encountered that had made me uncomfortable.

She'd wanted to protect me from them the way I'd wanted to protect her from Jacob when he was still showing up.

But that didn't mean that I was _in love_ with her. I'd wanted her to be safe. That was all; nothing more and nothing less.

Just like I made her stay over here with me because I wanted her to get some sleep. I had no ulterior motive and she needed her sleep. So she was here, with me, exactly where I wanted her to be.

For the rest of my life.

I stopped in the middle of the bathroom, staring down at the sink with wide eyes as my hand fell from my hair and slapped against my thigh.

The rest of my life was a really long time. And not just for me, but for Bella, too. What if she didn't want to stay that long? What if a few months from now, all the people following her every move and speculating about her on internet message boards finally started to take its toll and she didn't want to be with me?

How would I do that? How would I get through something like that? Having Bella now, where no one that really mattered enough knew about us, completely secluded and distanced from prying eyes and camera flashes was perfect. How would I get through it if she left me because of all the things that would be taken away from her because of _me_?

I wouldn't. There was no possible way that I would be able to survive living without Bella. Not now that I knew what being with her meant and how I felt when I just _saw_ her.

Something inside of me snapped and popped, leaving me gasping for breath as I leaned forward and braced my hands on the sink. It wasn't painful, just enormously shocking and surprising.

And that pull, that indescribable strong yank on my heart earlier when I heard her tell Alice that she was falling in love with me _meant something_. It was more than needing to be with her or seeing her all the time or falling asleep with her every night; it was _more than that_.

And it scared the fucking shit out of me. I'd never felt this way before. I'd never had every single part of me attached to someone else so strongly. And the attachment wasn't with something flimsy like balloon ribbons; oh, no, they were like steel fucking _cables_ that all had me attached to the one person in the world that I couldn't live without.

"Alice!" I screamed, taking one large step toward the door and yanking it open when I managed to catch my breath again.

She was standing just outside the door, a plate of scrambled eggs in her hand as she stuffed a forkful in her mouth.

"Hm?" she hummed innocently, raising her eyebrows as she chewed.

"I hate you," I grumbled.

"Figure it out yet?" she asked when she swallowed, completely ignoring what I said to her.

"It's only been a few days," I grumbled again, gripping onto the doorjamb and staring at her.

"It doesn't take six months to fall in love, Edward," she said calmly, stuffing another forkful of eggs into her mouth. "It took me about a minute to realize that I was in love with Jasper."

I rolled my eyes, relaxing my fingertips on the door casing and taking a few more deep breaths.

She was always so over dramatic about the husband she'd claimed to need time away from a few days ago.

"I'm different from you."

"Not by much." Finishing the eggs on her plate, she gently poked my thigh with the fork before turning and walking down the stairs. "Now you just need to tell her."

I collapsed against the doorjamb again, banging my head against it as I listened to her in the kitchen.

I couldn't simply enjoy the way that I'd _just_ started to feel; no, I had to immediately rush off to figure out a way to tell her. Oh, yeah, and it was just so damn _simple_, too.

As if I wouldn't be pacing around the house trying to find the perfect way to tell her because Bella deserved perfection. Especially when it was something as important as this. As if I wouldn't be tearing my hair out of my head because everything I'd think of would sound like a garbled, mangled pile of shit.

No, in Alice's tiny little world of romance and perfection, it all was so damn _simple_.

"Say it!" she yelled up at me.

"Say what?" I yelled back down, starting to get a slight headache.

"Don't be stupid, Edward! Say it!"

I stopped trying to bash my face into the wall and closed my eyes tightly, fisting both of my hands into my pockets and taking a deep breath.

"Don't you think I should tell her first?" I asked, moving from the doorway to stand at the top of the stairs.

She was standing at the bottom, her arms crossed over her chest and her right toe tapping against the floor.

"Just say it!"

"Why?"

"If you can't say it out loud to me, how are you going to actually tell her?"

"Have you always been such a pain in the ass?"

"Yes," she said, smiling brightly up at me. "Say it!"

"Alice…"

"Edward! Why are you making this so hard?"

"Why are you harping on it?"

"Because I like her. I like her and I think she's pretty damn perfect for you. And I want you to realize that and say it so that it can finally be real to you."

"I never said that it wasn't real."

"You were banging your head against the wall!"

"Because of you!"

"Bullshit."

She sighed, narrowing her eyes and glaring up at me. I glared back, determined not to give in to her.

"Fine. Don't say it. Hell, don't even tell her if you don't want to! But I will not be the one consoling you when you leave and feel guilty that she doesn't know how you really feel about her."

"I'll tell her before then."

"Sure you will." She rolled her eyes and waved me off before walking into the living room. "We're meeting her at one-thirty, right?"

"Yes!" I called through my teeth, turning on my heel and walking back into the bathroom.

If I could've, I probably would've spent the rest of the day in this room. It was quiet and completely Alice free and that was exactly what I needed right now.

Flicking the nozzle in the bathtub, I let the water run until it was hot enough and stripped off my pajama pants before stepping in.

I smiled softly at the stupid mesh sponge thing that was still hanging off the shower caddy as I pulled the curtain closed.

"Bella," I whispered, all the tension and stress I felt in my body from dealing with Alice and her accusations melting away as I closed my eyes.

One-thirty couldn't come soon enough.

~*~

"You're not going to say anything to her, are you?" I asked as we pulled up into the parking lot of the bookstore at one-thirty.

The rest of the morning had been spent mostly in silence, with Alice on her laptop in the living room and me on mine in the dining room. Jeannie had had a few questions about the movie premiere I had to attend on January second, but that had been the only pressing issue I'd had to deal with.

I'd spent more than half of the day playing online games that held no more interest than talking to my sister about the inner workings of my heart had, but it kept me occupied.

"No, chicken shit, I will not be saying anything about you being in love with her."

I grit my teeth together, tightening my hands around the steering wheel as I pulled into a parking spot and yanked the keys out of the ignition.

There was a bright red BMW M3 and Bella's truck in the parking lot, but other than that it was completely deserted. Shaking my head and briefly wondering how she stayed in business during the winter months, I got out of the car and waited for Alice to do the same.

"Flashy," Alice quipped, her eyes glued to the car appreciatively before we walked down the pathway and up the walk to the door.

"Don't know what the hell it's doing in this town," I mumbled, pushing through the door to hear Bella's laughter bouncing off the walls.

I immediately grinned, waiting for Alice to walk in ahead of me before closing the door and walking up to the front counter.

The owner of the other car, I assumed, turned to look at us as she heard our footsteps and I recognized her as the blonde that had nearly stalked across the road to my house on the night Bella first kissed me.

"Hey, guys!" Bella exclaimed brightly, sitting behind the counter with a smile on her face and a half eaten sub sandwich in front of her.

"Hey," I continued to grin, placing my hands firmly down on the counter and leaning over to kiss her quickly.

She grinned back at me, resting her chin in her hand and keeping her eyes connected with mine as I backed away from her. It was like we were in our own little world and I never wanted it any other way. No one else existed outside of the bubble we created until they had to and right now, no one had to.

At least they didn't until the blonde cleared her throat and Alice kicked the back of my shin almost simultaneously. That couldn't be a very good sign.

I hissed, turning to face her with narrowed eyes.

"Was that necessary?" I grumbled.

"Oh," Bella laughed nervously and I quickly turned back to her when Alice merely smiled angelically at me. "Edward, Alice, this is my friend Rosalie Hale."

Rosalie stood up, holding out her hand and waiting for me to do the same.

"It's nice to finally meet you," she said, her voice smooth and calm as she shook my hand. "I've heard _a lot_ about you."

I jumped when I saw a paperclip bounce off the side of Rosalie's head and snorted when we both turned to see Bella glaring at her.

"A paperclip?" Rosalie asked dryly, raising an eyebrow.

"It was the first thing I saw."

Rosalie rolled her eyes, dropping my hand to turn to Alice and lift her head in much of the same fashion that Alice usually did when she was appraising someone else.

"I've heard practically nothing about you," Rosalie stated. "Nice to meet you just the same."

I saw Bella's hand come up to her forehead, gently tapping her fingertips against it as she closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Rose," she sighed heavily. "Tact, please."

"Oh, it's fine!" Alice bubbled, laughing lightly. "I'm Alice, Edward's sister."

Rosalie nodded, smoothing her hands over her midnight blue pencil skirt – it was sad that I even knew what a pencil skirt _was_ - before balling up the wrapper I assumed her sub had been in and lobbing it into the trash can next to her.

"It's nice to meet you both, but I really have to get back to work." She smiled politely at the two of us before turning to Bella as she grabbed her coat and purse. "You'll call me."

Bella nodded, her bottom lip in her mouth yet again as Rosalie turned, waved and walked out of the store.

"Sorry about her," Bella apologized, smiling awkwardly at the two of us. "She's… she's just Rose."

She sighed heavily and stood up, wrapping up what was left of her sub and setting it off to the side.

"I like her!" Alice exclaimed, smiling brightly as she looked around the main room. "Very honest."

"Oh, that's an understatement." Bella shook her head, sighing again before smiling at me. "What have you two been up to since this morning?"

"Arguing!" Alice stated brightly, walking over to the doorway and peering inside.

I glared at the back of her head, jamming my hands into my jeans pockets as she began to hum to herself.

"Oh?"

"Don't ask," I mumbled, moving my hands from my pockets and hooking an arm around her waist as she walked around the counter.

"Kay," she yawned, leaning against me and resting her head against my chest.

"Do you get magazines here, Bella?"

She nodded, walking away from me and into the book room with Alice hot on her heels, happily babbling on about all the new designs she'd started this afternoon.

I sighed and sat down in the uncomfortable chair Rosalie had just vacated, waiting patiently for Bella to come back.

She finally did, thankfully without Alice and I quickly grabbed her around the waist again to pull her into my lap. She chuckled quietly before leaning against my chest and placing a small kiss against the side of my neck.

"I shouldn't be doing this," she mumbled, sitting up straight again and sighing down at me.

"Doing what?"

"Sitting on you." She smirked and leaned in to kiss me softly. "It's not very professional."

"But I missed you," I said quietly, rubbing her back.

"You saw me eight and a half hours ago."

"That's a whole lot of time left alone with Alice."

She laughed and kissed me again, standing up and leaning back against the counter, her legs wedged in between mine.

"Six and a half more to go," she sighed, reaching up to run her hands through her hair.

I looked up at her and my heart started beating painfully against my chest when I saw just how tired she really was. More than anything, I wanted to grab her up, tell Alice to mind the store for a while, bring her back to my place and make her catch a few hours' worth of sleep.

"Can you hire someone else?" I asked softly, leaning forward to wrap my hands around her thighs.

"I don't have the payroll hours to give anyone anything worthwhile. It's the slow season."

"The really slow season," I mumbled.

She smirked and nodded, reaching down to run her hands through my hair and rest them on the back of my head.

"So," she started, quietly clearing her throat, "Rosalie and Angela want to get to know you."

I swallowed the sudden lump rising in my throat as my eyes widened, my hands twitching nervously against her thighs.

"Uh…"

"You don't have to," she said quietly, laughing nervously and shaking her head. "If you don't want to. I mean… they won't try mauling you and you've already met Rose so…"

"They're your best friends, right?" I asked softly when she trailed off.

She nodded, biting her bottom lip as she began to drag her fingernails across the back of my scalp.

My eyes rolled back in my head and my eyelids fluttered shut, my breathing starting to pick up as I unconsciously began pulling her closer to me again.

"Edward," she laughed, stilling her hands and dropping them to my shoulders.

I opened my eyes again, half lidded and looked up at her, smiling lazily.

"And they mean a lot to you?" I asked, quickly picking up on our conversation as my mind cleared again.

She nodded again, still quietly laughing at me.

"So we'll have to figure something out with them. If they mean a lot to you, then they mean a lot to me."

"Yeah?"

I grabbed one of her hands from my shoulders and brought the back of it to my lips.

"Let me know when you can set this up, all right? I have nothing better to do."

"I'll call them when I close tonight."

I swallowed hard and pressed another kiss against the back of her hand, nodding.

I was nervous about the whole thing. Sure, I'd listened to Rosalie screaming at Bella a few times and had just met her, but spending a prolonged amount of time with her best friends was almost as bad as meeting her father.

Her best friends held a lot of power over her. Any girls' best friends did and I'm sure Bella's were no different from that.

If they didn't like me, I was out. There weren't a lot of relationships that survived if the girl's best friends didn't like the boyfriend; I'd seen it happen to Emmett quite a few times in the past.

And I _knew_ I wouldn't be able to handle that. Not after just realizing how I felt about her. Just the fact that she had to be standing up when I wanted her safely held on my lap at this current moment was like pure torture. Like someone had a large juicy steak dangling off of a rope in front of an extremely hungry lion; the closer the lion got, the more they ripped the steak away from it.

I would _not_ be able to handle it if Rosalie and Angela convinced her that I was a horrid excuse for a man and snatched her away from me.

"Hey."

I jumped when I felt her hands on my cheeks and my eyes focused enough to see that she'd bent down in front of me, her eyes level with mine. I hadn't even realized that my own hand had fallen back into my lap when she'd freed hers.

"There's nothing to worry about," she whispered, stroking her thumbs over my cheeks.

I smiled shakily at her.

"That sounds vaguely familiar."

She smiled back, leaning in to gently touch her lips to mine.

"They'll like you."

"Did they like Jacob?"

Her eyes flashed and I opened my mouth with every intention of taking it back when she blew out a deep breath and kissed me again.

"No, not really. But they _will_ like you. What's not to like?"

Oh, there was probably an entire list residing in Alice's large purse that she'd be willing to show anybody if they just asked her for it.

"Uh…"

"Rhetorical question," she mumbled, softly grazing her lips across mine. "Please don't worry about it."

"You know how you were nervous to meet Alice?"

She nodded, letting her hands drop from my face and standing up straight again. I replaced my hands around her thighs and looked up at her, licking my lips.

"That's how I feel right now."

"You'll be fine," she said softly, reaching out to place one of her hands on the top of my head. "It'll be like a dinner party. I'll make something and we can just sit around and talk for a while. It'll be casual and easy; nothing too fancy and no pressure."

"No pressure," I echoed, scoffing.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," she sighed, her hand dropping out of my hair to rest at her side. "I'll just tell them that you've got too much going on."

"No," I said softly, shaking my head. "I want to."

"I don't want to make you do something that you don't want to do."

But why shouldn't she? She had every right to demand that I hang out with her friends and get to know them. She'd given up entirely too much for me and I'd done what? I'd dealt with her stupid associate in trade for her vacation time. That was _nothing_ compared to all the shit she'd put on hold for me.

"You aren't," I said, reaching up and gently hooking my fingers around her palm. "They're a big part of your life. I want to get to know them."

She chewed on her bottom lip again, curling her fingers around mine.

"You're a big part of my life too, you know," she said quietly. "I want them to see that."

And that stupid grin made a reappearance as I stood up and gently placed my lips against hers.

"You could invite them over tonight."

Alice's voice coming from the doorway made us both jump and look over at her. She was leaning casually against the door jamb, absently flipping through the copy of _Vogue_ in her hands.

"I don't have any furniture," Bella breathed, placing her free hand on her chest.

"My place," I said quietly, gently tugging on her hand.

"That's okay with you?"

She looked up at me and I smirked, nodding and shrugging one shoulder as I twisted our fingers together.

"I trust you, and in turn, that means that I trust your friends. Have them come tonight."

"Plus," Alice piped up, her eyes still glued to the magazine. "I think Rosalie would make a good match for Emmett."

I rolled my eyes, leaning down and resting my forehead against Bella's.

"Can't just leave it alone, can you?" I groaned as Bella laughed.

"You know I'm right," she sang before turning back into the other room and disappearing yet again.

"Know it all," I grumbled.

Bella laughed again and kissed me once more, squeezing my hand.

"You're sure that you're okay with this?"

"Positive. As long as you can stay awake long enough."

She smiled lazily and nodded. "I'll have some more coffee."

"You should've told me. I would've brought you some."

She shrugged, gently brushing the tip of her nose against mine.

"You showed up," she said softly. "That's good enough for me."

I smiled and kissed her again, winding my arm around her waist and sucking on her bottom lip.

And I almost told her as I pulled away from her. It was on the tip of my tongue, ready to make its way out of my mouth when we both heard the front door open and slam shut behind us.

"Sorry," she mouthed before stepping around me and smiling brightly at the customer that had walked in. "Hello!"

I plopped back into the chair and watched as she walked over to the elderly woman who was rasping out a book title that she wanted. I smiled and tilted my head to the side as Bella led her over to one of the plush chairs on the other side of the room and told her that she'd find it for her.

My girlfriend was amazing and I was done being worried about all of it. I was completely in love with her.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**I really don't know how many more times I can keep telling you guys that I adore you. Honestly, every time I open my inbox and find that you've reviewed or added Stay as a story alert or favorite story, this big stupid ass grin lights up on my face and my day starts out incredibly well. You keep the inspiration for this story up and my muse firmly in place and I can't thank all of **_**you**_** enough for that.**

**Thank you all for being interested and leaving me reviews and telling me how much you love this story. It means the world to me. Oh, and even more thanks for getting me to over two hundred reviews! The singing continues…**

**Oh, and to answer a question I got for chapter eight, it's negative five degrees Fahrenheit.**

**Now, enjoy!**

~*~

***Bella***

"Rose, you have to behave!" I exclaimed, the phone cradled in between my neck and shoulder as I scrambled around my office at seven o'clock, doing everything in my power to tie up everything until I could deal with it tomorrow morning.

Christ, I still had dinner to cook when I got out of here. When did an entire day start going by so quickly? Why did it seem like Edward and Alice had just been here five minutes ago? Why did it feel like I was going to hyperventilate and pass out?

Maybe the five extra coffees I'd had throughout the day was making a dramatic difference.

"Of course I'm going to behave, Bella. What ever makes you think I wouldn't?"

"Don't start with me," I growled, snapping a blank post-it on top of a pile of papers before grabbing a pen.

"Someone needs to calm down. Or get laid."

The pen slipped out of my fingers and rolled underneath the heater on the opposite side of the room. I closed my eyes, sucked in a deep breath and started gently tapping on my forehead with my free hand.

She had a point, but neither of those things would be happening anytime soon. Calming down at this point was not an option and the getting laid part… well… I'd cross that bridge when we came to it.

"I need you to call Angela," I said calmly. "I have too much to do and I'm running out of time."

"What time did you want us there?"

I looked over at the clock above the doorway and groaned, realizing I'd been wasting massive amounts of time with silly things like telling Rosalie not to scare away my boyfriend when I could've been thinking about what to make for dinner tonight.

"Seven-thirty. Park in my driveway and then just walk over."

"His house, huh?"

"Mine has nowhere for everyone to sit," I grumbled, grabbing my coat, purse and keys and setting them on my desk. "I haven't had a chance to get new stuff yet."

"You really should do that soon."

I rolled my eyes, running my free hand through my hair. Because God knows I didn't already have more than enough to do now.

"And I will. Call Angela, please, and tell her that she can bring Ben if she wants. Edward will appreciate another man in the house, I'm sure," I grumbled, shaking my head.

"Fine," she sighed heavily.

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head as I grabbed my coat and started to throw it around my shoulders.

"I'll see you in half an hour."

"Bye, Bella."

I nudged the phone off my shoulder, quickly grabbing it before it fell and turning it off. Placing it in the base, I finished getting my coat on, grabbing my purse and keys and all but flew down the stairs and out of the store altogether.

I locked the door and ran up the small driveway until I reached the back parking lot and jumped into my truck.

I still had absolutely no idea what I was going to make for dinner. I hadn't had any ideas when I thought about it and I'd officially run out of time.

Okay, so I was nervous, too. It had been two months before I'd had Rose and Angela finally meet Jake and that really hadn't gone over well.

Meeting at a crowded bar in the middle of downtown Glens Falls probably wasn't one of the best ideas I'd ever had, either.

They'd never forgiven Jake for getting piss-ass drunk and throwing up all over their shoes – Rosalie's expensive Manolo Blahnik's, no less - as we walked out of the bar.

And everything between them had been pretty much downhill since then. It was a very rare day when Jake had been included in our plans no matter how much he'd tried apologizing to them over the years.

I should've known right then. My girls had never steered me in the wrong direction before.

I could only pray that they saw how amazing Edward was, how much he meant to me and how completely different he was from Jake.

And the day – or, at least, the few minutes after the alarm clock had woken me up to find me in Edward's arms yet again – had started out pretty well.

Alice and I were starting over. I couldn't fault her for being cautious about me; I'd be cautious about me if I were in her shoes, too. Granted, my feet would probably be screaming at me by the end of the day if I even attempted to wear those things she called shoes.

It was only natural and I'd told her the truth. There was no point in holding anything back when I knew that she was just trying to make sure that I wanted more than his fame.

The day had still been going fine when Rosalie glided in, yet another bag from the deli swinging from her hand as she plopped down into the chair and grilled me for details about how meeting Alice had gone. I'd told her everything that had happened and just as she asked when she was going to finally get the chance to meet him, Edward and Alice had strolled in.

That meeting had gone over almost as smoothly as I'd hoped and getting to spend the few moments with Edward while I was at work was perfect.

But then the stressing had begun when I'd started thinking about everything that could go wrong during dinner. There were so many things that had popped up into my head that it immediately had me on guard and nervous about tonight.

Shaking my head fiercely as I parked in my driveway in an attempt to think positively, I got out of the truck and sprinted across the road, running up the porch stairs and impatiently knocking on the door.

I heard angry shouting from the other side and furrowed my eyebrows, shaking my head again and sighing heavily as I knocked again.

We didn't have time for this. As much as their sibling rivalry amused me, now was definitely not the time for it.

I looked up when the door opened and before I had time to do much of anything else, his arms were around my waist, his head was buried in my shoulder and he was stepping forward onto the porch with me.

I stumbled backward, grabbing onto his shoulders for support – completely dropping my purse and keys in the process - and holding on tightly.

"Edward? Are you okay?" I asked softly, almost afraid to raise my voice.

"She's driving me insane," he whispered into my ear, pulling me tightly against him. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you right now."

I laughed lightly and wrapped my arms completely around his shoulders, burying my nose into his neck and closing my eyes.

Yes. This was exactly what I needed; this was exactly where I needed to be. All the stress, the extra baggage I'd been carrying around all day, all of it melted away as he stood with me, securely wrapped together as if nothing else mattered.

"What should I make for dinner?" I asked softly.

"Already taken care of," he mumbled, placing soft kisses against my neck.

"Huh? You didn't cook, did you?"

"No," he mumbled, chuckling, "Alice made her world famous lasagna."

A huge weight was immediately lifted off my shoulders and I relaxed even more into him, smiling and humming contentedly.

"Did you really think we'd make you do all of the work when it was her idea?"

"I just figured…"

"You figured wrong, love," he said softly, standing up just enough to press his lips to mine.

Did he just call me _love_? Did he really just say that? I wasn't imagining that, right? It sounded real. And the effects it had on me sure as hell _felt_ real enough.

Pounding heart? Check.

Euphoric feeling building just underneath my rib cage? Check.

Absolute desire to kiss him senseless and say to hell with the rest of the world?

Oh, yes. _Check_.

"How tired are you?" he whispered when he backed away, his hands immediately cupping my face as he studied my eyes.

And if he couldn't see the stupid ass grin on my face that would completely answer that question, then he needed to get his eyes checked.

"I'm perfect."

He smiled slowly and leaned down to kiss me again.

"Yeah, you really are," he breathed against my lips.

My knees wanted to give out and if it weren't for the fact that I had a death grip on his shoulders, then I probably would've been a very embarrassing heap at his feet.

"You two!"

We both jumped when we heard Alice's voice and I heard him groan as he dropped his head back onto my shoulder.

"I need you to set the table!"

I looked over Edward's shoulder to see her standing in the doorway, a white frilly apron that Edward should never admit to owning tied around her waist as she dangerously shook a spatula at us.

"What time are they arriving?"

"Seven thirty," I laughed.

"Twenty minutes?" she screeched, throwing her hands over her head and turning around to walk back into the house. "Table! _Now_!"

"I guess we'd better go inside. Mom's mad."

He snorted into my shoulder, tilting his head slightly and pressing an open mouthed kiss against the side of my neck.

My eyes fluttered closed and the already tight grip I had on his shoulders only increased as I felt his tongue flick out over my skin. My mouth fell open slightly as my head dropped back, his tongue making slow circles across my skin as he dragged his mouth across my neck.

"Seriously!" Alice screeched from inside.

We both cringed and he sighed heavily, placing one soft kiss against my neck before standing up straight and grabbing my hand. I snatched my purse from the porch without managing to break my stride and dropped it onto the table when we walked inside.

"They'll like me, right?" he asked softly as he let me go long enough for me to shed my coat and throw my keys next to my purse.

"Yes," I nodded as I quickly grabbed his hand again and let him lead me into the dining room. "There's _really_ nothing to worry about."

Alice had gone all out while setting up the table. The white linen table cloth was spread evenly over the round table, two white pillar candles were sitting in squat holders flanking an arrangement of some type of bouquet, and matching placemats were spaced evenly around the table.

It looked like a picture out of a magazine but with the little I'd already learned about Alice, none of it should've really surprised me.

The lasagna that she had made smelled delicious and I smiled, leaning against his arm as he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

"Why do you keep these stuffed in a box, Edward?" Alice exclaimed from the top of the stairs, holding up a white plate rimmed in blue and gold.

It was absolutely amazing how fast that girl could move and easily multi-task.

"What are you doing in my closet?" he shouted, squeezing my hand quickly before taking the stairs two at a time and snatching the plate out of Alice's hands.

"We can use these tonight!"

"For _what_?"

"Dinner! What else, moron?"

"I have perfectly good plates in the kitchen!"

"They're boring and informal."

I watched as Alice fisted her hands on her hips and lifted her nose in the air, almost daring Edward to disagree with her.

I had to cover my mouth so that I wouldn't end up laughing at them because really, neither of them looked like they'd join me if I burst out into laughter right this minute.

"They're _plates_, Alice! Who the hell cares what's on them?"

"We're having _guests_, Edward! Do you want them to think you live like a pig?"

"Yes, actually, I do!"

Then I really did laugh and had to press my lips together tightly when they both looked down at me, Edward smirking at me and Alice looking disapprovingly down her nose at me.

"What do you think, Bella?" Alice asked as she snatched the plate back and held it up at her side.

"It really doesn't matter. They won't care either way."

She rolled her eyes, throwing her free arm in the air.

"You two are _perfect_ for each other!" she growled, storming back into Edward's bedroom.

"Thank you!" he yelled back before following her.

"Why are they even _in_ your closet? They should be out!"

"I have no room to put them anywhere else! Alice! Drop the box!"

I laughed, shaking my head as I walked into the kitchen and began pulling his plain white plates out of the cabinet.

I listened to them as they continued yelling, their words muffled but their tone the same as it had been since Alice had arrived. He was annoyed with her and she didn't really seem to care much as she continued to do whatever it was that had annoyed him in the first place.

I was getting the silverware out of the drawer when I heard Edward come back downstairs, mumbling and groaning unhappily with his hands in his hair as he walked over to me.

"I think we should run away," he grumbled into my ear, his arms coming around my waist as he stood behind me.

"She'd probably find us," I mused, closing the drawer and snatching up the plates and silverware in my arms.

"Not if we ran fast enough."

I laughed and leaned back slightly to kiss the bottom of his jaw before walking out of his arms and setting the plates on the table.

"She's leaving tomorrow, right?" I asked over my shoulder as I placed the plates on the mats.

"Yeah. Bright and early, of course."

He leaned against the doorway that separated the dining room from the kitchen and crossed his arms over his chest, smiling softly at me.

"Any ideas what you wanna do for your vacation?"

I shrugged, stretching across the table to place the last plate on the mat and then started on passing out the silverware.

"Spend it with you."

"Naturally."

I looked over at him and rolled my eyes when I saw him brushing his fingertips on his shirt, a cocky grin lighting up his face.

"I could decide that I wanted to go somewhere."

"We can do that, too," he said easily, shrugging and swinging one leg in front of him to cross his ankles. "Whatever you want."

"I meant without you." I pointed a butter knife at him as his mouth dropped and smiled smugly to myself. "I don't have to spend my entire vacation with you if I don't want to."

"I'm the only reason you have that vacation!"

I shrugged again, neatly lining up the fork with the edge of the table, making my way around it.

"You can have it back then."

I continued my meticulous placement of the silverware even as he stomped his way over to me and stared hard at the side of my face, leaning over me as I desperately tried to hide the grin wanting to make its way across my lips.

"Bella Swan."

"That would be me," I said calmly, still walking around the table and placing the silverware next to the plates.

I screeched as he grabbed me around the waist when the last of the silverware was on the table, laughing as I tried to fight out of his grip.

"Edward!" I screeched as he plucked me off of my feet and turned us around. "Put me down!"

"You tell me that I can, basically, take the vacation I coerced out of a certain Jessica that you work with and shove it up my ass and expect no retaliation? I think not!"

He walked us into the living room and unceremoniously dropped me on the couch, jumping on me and pinning me down before I had the chance to even breathe normally.

"Edward!" I screeched again, laughing as he gathered both of my hands into one of his and placed his free hand on my hip. "No! Don't!"

"What in the holy hell are you two _doing_?" Alice asked, poking her head into the living room as she came downstairs again.

"Revenge!" Edward shouted before digging his fingertips into my side.

I screamed and wiggled underneath him, my breath sobbing out in laughter as he moved his fingers over my stomach and back again.

"You're both absurd," I managed to hear Alice yell over my screaming laughter before she turned and disappeared.

"Edward!" I managed to get out, arching my back and pressing myself against him. "Stop! Please!"

"Tell me that you appreciate your vacation time!" he bartered, digging his fingertips into my ribs.

I screamed and wiggled beneath him a little more, throwing my head back as he continued across my stomach.

"You were selfish about it!" I panted out, trying to free my legs from his and screaming again as his fingers found my sides again.

"Well of course I was selfish about it," he said as if it made all the sense in the world. "It's a God-given right that I get to spend time with my girlfriend, uninterrupted for an entire week!"

"I don't know what planet you're living on," I screamed when his thumb found that spot on my hip that was especially ticklish, "but I don't think it's a God-given right! Edward!"

"Say it!" he threatened, his fingertips once again underneath my rib cage. "Or this torment will never stop!"

I gasped for breath, still trying in vain to get my hands out of his grasp.

"I'll _die_ eventually! I can't even _breathe_!"

"That's what you get! Say it!"

"I appreciate it!" I finally yelled, squirming even as his hand fell away from my hip.

"That's what I thought," he grinned, letting go of my wrists to anchor himself over me.

"You're such an ass," I laughed, grabbing his chin in my hand and forcefully pressing my lips against his.

"She finally agrees with me!" we heard Alice yell from the kitchen.

"Shut up, Alice," he mumbled against my lips, running his tongue along my bottom lip and quickly meeting mine as I opened my mouth.

I laughed and reached up to wrap my arms around his neck, my fingers immediately tangling in his hair.

"Thank you for my vacation time," I whispered, pulling away from him.

"I was only joking with you, you know," he smiled, reaching up to run the back of his hand down my cheek.

"I know, but thank you all the same."

"You're welcome."

"Are you two quite finished?"

Alice popped her head back into the living room, her eyebrows raised and her hands on her hips.

"What do you need?" Edward sighed heavily, easily moving off of me and holding out a hand to me.

I placed my hand in his and let him pull me up, smiling angelically at Alice as she rolled her eyes at us.

"You need to go brush your hair," she pointed at me, "and _you_ need to help me cut the garlic bread."

"Because that's definitely a two person job."

"I'm more than willing to poison your portion of the lasagna," she threatened, pointing at him as well.

I laughed and gently patted his back before walking out of the living room and up the stairs to get to the bathroom. Flipping on the lights and looking in the mirror, I cringed at my appearance.

My cheeks were red, my hair was absolutely everywhere and I looked like I'd just survived an attack from a rabid animal.

Which I kind of did, in all reality. A very nice attack, but an attack nonetheless.

And the way his body felt on top of mine was definitely an experience I was willing to have again. Many times, in fact, and most definitely as often as humanly possible.

I snatched my hairbrush from the counter in front of me and hummed softly as I ran it through my hair, straightening and working out the snarls that had resulted from the not-all-that-unpleasant attack.

"Bella! They're walking over here!" Edward's nervous voice shouted up the stairs. "And why is there a man with them?"

I laughed and placed my brush back on the counter before flipping off the lights and running down the stairs to stand in front of him.

"That's Ben, Angela's husband. I hope you don't mind, but I figured that you'd probably like another man in the house."

He smiled shakily and shook his head, grabbing my hand as I offered it to him and letting me pull him to the door.

"You invited someone else?" Alice yelled.

"There's enough, right?" I called out over my shoulder, biting my bottom lip.

I knew I should've told her sooner. Although, between being attacked before I even made it into the house, listening to them argue and then being attacked again, I had a pretty plausible excuse for it slipping my mind.

"Yes, but you need to tell me these things beforehand, Bella! I have to re-work the entire table set up!"

"Sorry!"

"I don't need to be here for this," Edward laughed nervously, staring hard at the door as we heard their footsteps on the porch. "I mean, you can answer the door, right?"

"Stop being such a girl!" Alice shouted at him from the kitchen.

"You're not helping!" he yelled back, jumping when the footsteps stopped and a knock sounded through the door.

"I'm not trying to," she sang loudly.

I laughed at them and reached up to place my hand on his cheek, gently running my thumb down the bridge of his nose.

"You are going to be fine," I said softly, watching as his eyes closed when he leaned into my hand. "They're going to love you."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because they'll see how much you mean to me and they'll see how important you are to me and everything will be fine. Trust _me_ on this, okay?"

His eyes slowly opened and he took a deep breath, turning his head to place a kiss in the palm of my hand as he nodded.

"Okay."

I nodded, reaching over and pulling open the door to see Rosalie standing in front of me, her hand raised to knock again.

"It's about damn time, Bella. Don't you know that it's cold out here?"

"Rose," Angela sighed, shaking her head.

"Hello to you, too."

I moved out of the way and the three of them walked in and started shedding their coats. I grabbed Edward's hand and pulled him next to me, doing my best to stifle the laughter at his stiff posture and slightly delayed reactions.

"Rose, you've already met Edward."

She nodded, shooting him a blinding smile as she handed me her coat.

"Nice to see you again."

Angela rolled her eyes at the back of Rosalie's head before throwing her own coat over her arm and sighing again.

"Ben, Angela, this is Edward."

"Nice to meet you," Angela smiled, reaching over and offering her his hand.

He stiffly reached up and grabbed it, shaking it mechanically before moving on to Ben and doing the same.

"Boy, you really need to calm down," Rosalie stated, patting his arm before walking further into the house and looking around.

"Ignore her," Angela and I said at the same time.

"You get used to her after a while," Ben stated, rolling his eyes as he stepped up next to Edward. "It takes a bit, but eventually you just start tuning her out."

"I heard that!" Rosalie snapped, barely turning around to glare at him as she looked over every detail of the dining room table that Alice had somehow managed to completely rearrange without me noticing.

He smiled angelically at her and Edward managed a nervous chuckle, squeezing my hand tightly.

"You have a lovely home, Edward," Angela piped up, smiling up at him. "Thank you for inviting us over."

"Thank you for coming," he said quietly.

I set Rose's coat on the rocking chair behind us, motioning for Angela and Ben to do the same with theirs.

"So you like it up here quite a bit, huh?" Angela asked, looking up at Edward.

"I love it up here," he smiled broadly, squeezing my hand again and looking down at me.

I laughed and smiled brightly up at Edward as I led them all into the dining room, doing my best to shove the nerves that were surfacing down as far as they would go for just a little while longer.

"I'll be out in just a minute!" Alice yelled from the kitchen.

"Don't threaten them, Alice," Edward sighed, "we don't want to scare them away just yet."

"Shut it!"

"That's my sister, Alice," he explained quietly to Angela and Ben. "She's staying with me for a few days."

"Where are you from again?" Rosalie asked, circling the table and admiring the framed family pictures hanging on the walls that I'd never really noticed before.

Huh. Had those always been there? Or had I just been that wrapped up in Edward that I didn't notice them before now?

"Our family lives in Forks, Washington."

"Forks?" she snorted, turning to look at him. "Is there a town named Spoons, too?"

"Oh, Christ," Angela mumbled, slapping her forehead and looking down at her feet.

"How about Knives?"

"Rose!" I yelled, narrowing my eyes at her as she looked at me. "Enough."

"Oh calm down, Bella," she sighed, waving at me as she turned back to the pictures. "I'm only joking with him."

"Okay!"

We all looked over when Alice popped out of the kitchen, the apron gone from around her waist and a blindingly bright smile on her face.

"Dinner will be done in about ten more minutes. Does anyone want anything to drink?"

"Yes," Edward and I said at the same time.

Angela stifled a laugh and Alice had to press her lips together before she nodded.

"I'll get them. Anyone else?" I asked, anxious to have something constructive to do.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. It was too soon. This happening tonight was just too soon because he wasn't comfortable having my friends in his house; in his sanctuary where he was safe and secluded.

"Do you have any wine?" Rosalie asked, turning completely around and nodding in acknowledgement at Alice.

Alice waved happily at her, walking over to her and quickly pointing out Emmett in each picture that she was looking at.

I wanted to roll my eyes but found myself wanting to snort more. She hadn't been kidding earlier about thinking that they'd be perfect for each other.

"Yes, there's wine in the refrigerator and I want some, too," Alice waved over her shoulder, going into detail of the story behind each and every picture on the wall with Emmett being the main focus.

"Beer, Ben?" I asked, raising an eyebrow as he made his way to the other side of Edward.

"Sure," he grinned quickly, nodding before turning to Edward and asking if he knew anything about baseball.

"I'll help you, Bella," Angela said, hooking arms with me and walking with me into the kitchen.

I looked over my shoulder at Edward to see him shift uneasily on his feet, his eyes pleading with me before I disappeared completely into the kitchen with a small reassuring smile on my lips.

"Bella," Angela whispered, laughing as I handed her two wine glasses from the top cabinet and walked over to the refrigerator. "Breathe."

"He's a really great guy, Ang," I whispered back, snatching the bottle of wine from the bottom rack. "He's just… he's really nervous and he's…"

"There's no reason for you to be making excuses," she laughed again, holding out the glasses in front of her as I yanked the cork out of the top. "It's going okay."

"I want you guys to like him. He's… I…" I shook my head as I poured the red wine into the glasses, snapping the cork back into the bottle and turning around to stick it back in the refrigerator. "I'm in love with him," I whispered, turning back to face her.

Completely full-blown, earth-shattering, life consuming sort of love. I was done falling; I'd gotten there approximately the minute he'd offered to have my friends over for dinner that night.

He was giving up his hiding spot to meet the people in my life because I'd asked him to. His hide away was being compromised by people that weren't related to or living next to him and he'd willingly given it up… _for me_.

"Yep."

I blinked at her, holding the refrigerator door open in preparation of grabbing the beer.

"Excuse me?"

"Bella, I know you. And I know when you're in pretty deep with someone. You've never looked or acted this way when you were with Jake, so I _know_ that there's something about this one."

I breathed out a sigh and pressed a hand to my nervous stomach, chewing on my bottom lip as I turned and grabbed four beer bottles.

"He'll warm up to us," she whispered when I turned around and moved from the refrigerator. "We just got here and of course it's going to be nerve-wracking for the both of you. But remember that we're your friends and we know the difference."

I smiled at her and hugged her awkwardly, doing my best not to spill the wine in her hands or drop one of the glass bottles I held in mine.

"Thank you."

"We'll get him talking. Don't you worry," she winked as we walked back into the dining room.

I handed off the bottles of beer to Edward and Ben, watching as he smiled genuinely at me without losing his place in the conversation with Ben that had been ongoing while we'd been in the kitchen.

I smiled back at him, twisting the top off of my own beer bottle before walking over to where Angela, Rose and Alice were still standing by the pictures. I handed Angela the beer I'd gotten for her and listened in as Alice told a very engrossed Rosalie everything there was to know about Emmett.

Edward seemed a little more relaxed, at least. He wasn't entirely comfortable just yet, but he wasn't as rigid and tense as he had been a few minutes ago.

And I grinned to myself as I sipped off my beer bottle, for once that day feeling as though everything really _would_ work out the way that I needed it to.

~*~

By eleven o'clock, everyone was getting up and getting ready to leave, still managing to find something to talk about as they did so.

Edward had calmed down considerably the longer we sat around the table, humming and complimenting Alice on her lasagna and eventually asking little unimportant questions to get some sort of conversation going.

It had only taken Rosalie asking Alice what she did for a living and no one had stopped talking since.

I'd learned that Edward _hadn't_ been exaggerating when he said that he was the worst third baseman there ever was. Alice had all told us about how he'd been daydreaming about something, got hit in the head with the baseball and was knocked out for about an hour during the last inning of the championship game.

His face had burned almost as brightly as mine usually does before he retaliated by telling everyone how they'd been playing hide and seek when they were younger and she'd gotten stuck while hiding behind the toilet in the bathroom. She'd been there for almost an hour before Emmett finally found her and almost had to rip the toilet out of the wall to get her out before their parents returned home.

I didn't even want to ask how she'd gotten behind there in the first place. Yes, she was tiny but I never would've thought that she could've wedged herself behind a toilet of all things.

Even Rosalie had managed not to insult either of them that badly and I'd caught her staring at the pictures of Emmett on the wall more than once. Alice had done a thorough job of getting her interested in him, at least.

Edward had discovered that Angela was a photographer and took a great interest in that; wanting to see her portfolio and telling her that if she wanted him to, he'd put in a good word when he got back to California and drum up some high quality clients for her. She'd beamed at it, but had declined, citing that she planned on staying in Lake George.

And _I'd_ beamed at _that_. Even though it had been Edward that offered, the fact that Angela didn't think twice before declining made me want to lunge across the table and smother her in a hug. While I wanted her to take every opportunity that she could – because she was one of the best photographers I'd ever seen – I was thrilled that she didn't want to do it through my boyfriend's celebrity status.

She did, however, offer him a photo session with her if he wanted it.

And when he'd nodded at her, agreeing to call her sometime during the week, it felt as though I were flying.

He liked my friends. He wanted to spend more time with them. He'd finally relaxed enough and felt comfortable enough to talk freely with them, taking them up on offers, laughing and joking and recalling embarrassing events from his childhood with his sister.

For the most part, the night had been a success and I couldn't be happier about it. Rosalie had behaved herself as much as she could, Ben kept Edward entertained when the rest of us went off on some tangent about something that I could never keep up with to begin with and everyone had gotten along _fine_.

I walked next to Edward as we followed everyone to the front door twenty minutes later, Alice trailing behind us and still yammering on to Rosalie about something that I no longer had the energy to wonder about.

I hugged them all once they'd gotten their coats on and stood by the front door, saying their parting words in preparation to leave.

And as much as I loved the three of them, I was fighting to keep my eyes open yet again. All I really wanted to do at that point was drag myself up the stairs and into bed so that I could get a few good hours of sleep before the alarm went off.

"All right, we need to get going," Ben stated, interrupting the little conversations still going on around him and stifling a yawn as he reached over to hold out his hand to Edward. "Nice meeting you, man. Let me know if you need anything. Bella has the number."

I smiled at him, watching gleefully as Edward grasped Ben's hand tightly in his and said his thanks.

"Oh! One more thing before we go." Rosalie turned around before she opened the door and the glint in her eye terrified me when she looked at Edward. "If you hurt her, I will not hesitate to string you up by your balls with fishing line."

And I just gaped at her, my mouth dropping to the floor as my eyes widened. I couldn't even say anything – the absolute shock and disbelief running through me seemed to completely paralyze me.

Alice was laughing hysterically behind us, and I was pretty positive that I heard her hit the floor. Angela and Ben were staring at her much in the same fashion that I was and I couldn't even look at Edward.

If there was ever a deal breaker for our relationship, that might have been it. And if I could prolong that conversation even for just a few minutes, I'd do it.

"Rosalie!" Angela sputtered, harshly smacking her arm.

She merely shrugged innocently, as if threatening him was no big deal and made no difference.

"Fair warning. Thanks for dinner, Alice!" She flashed a smile at Edward, who was standing stiff with both of his hands shielding his midsection when I finally looked over at him. "Thank you for having us over, Edward."

And then she was out the door, leaving the four of us standing still in a state of shock. Alice was still laughing, gasping for breath and sobbing out high-pitched hysterical laughter behind us.

There had never been two people in the whole word that I'd wanted to murder more than Rosalie and Alice at that moment.

"I have no words," Angela finally broke the silence, shaking her head slowly and blinking rapidly.

"Don't worry, buddy," Ben laughed nervously, clapping a hand on Edward's tense shoulder. "She said the same thing to me. In some form. Kind of."

Edward managed a shaky smile and nervous chuckle before he nodded and moved his hands to stuff them awkwardly in his pockets, nervously eyeing the doorway for any sign of Rosalie, I'm sure.

"Thank you for having us over. Really, it was very nice to meet the both of you," Angela smiled wearily, reaching out to squeeze his arm as she eyed Alice. "Talk to you later, Bella."

"Thanks for coming!" I squeaked out, watching as they finally disappeared out the door.

"I like her!" Alice exclaimed as I closed the door.

I turned to her, my eyes narrowed as I watched her pull herself up off the floor and wipe tears from her eyes, leaning back against the wall behind her and holding her stomach.

"Don't you think she'd be perfect for Emmett?"

"Yes," Edward choked out, nodding quickly. "Yes, I fucking do."

"I'm really sorry about her," I said quickly, biting my bottom lip nervously as I turned back to him. His crazy sister could wait. "I didn't think she'd actually…" I tossed my hands in the air helplessly. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head slowly, reaching out and pulling me against him, wrapping his arms tightly around my shoulders and burying his face in my hair.

"She's only looking out for you," he breathed. "But please don't _ever_ let her near me with anything that even remotely resembles fishing line."

"Promise," I mumbled as I wrapped my arms tightly around his waist.

"All right you two," Alice said, finally calmed down enough to stand up straight. "We all have to be up early in the morning so get out of my room."

"Gladly," Edward mumbled, keeping one arm draped around my shoulders as he pulled me toward the stairs.

"Thank you, Alice," I said quietly, smiling as I made him stop in front of her. "Tonight went pretty well."

She'd gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to make a nice dinner for people she didn't know and I really had no right to be annoyed no matter how much she encouraged Rosalie's comments.

She was his sister. She was supposed to find embarrassing things like that very humorous no matter whose expense it was at.

She smiled brightly and quickly wrapped her arms around my shoulders, hugging me tightly and kissing my cheek loudly as she backed away.

"You're more than welcome, Bella. I'll see you two in the morning."

I nodded and let Edward lead me up the stairs, leaning against him as we walked into his bedroom.

"And thank you," I said quietly, turning to stand in front of him before he could move too far from me.

"For what?" he asked just as quietly, placing his hands on either side of my waist and gently rubbing his thumbs over my stomach.

"For giving them a chance and for having them over here tonight. It really meant a lot to me."

He smiled and leaned down, softly touching his lips to mine as he nodded.

"Anything for you, Bella."

My heart jumped and I couldn't do anything more than smile up at him.

"It wasn't that bad, right?" I asked, reaching up to run my fingers through his hair.

"It could've been a lot worse. I like them," he nodded once, twisting his lips to the side. "I'm a little scared of Rosalie, though."

I laughed, stepping up on my toes to kiss him again. "I won't let her near you without witnesses."

"That's all I ask."

I laughed again and he smiled.

"We should get some sleep," he said softly, leaning up to kiss my forehead. "It's gonna be a long morning."

I nodded and stepped out of his arms to grab the shirt I now claimed as mine. He definitely wasn't getting it back and I was pretty positive that he knew that by now.

Yes, it would be a long morning – Alice didn't seem like the type to easily say goodbye to - but as long as I had him to come home to at the end of the day then it was something I was more than willing to deal with.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**I know it's taken me a while with this chapter, but it was driving me insane. I knew where I wanted it to go – I thought – and then ended up changing my mind entirely and leaving that whole end out. Edward is complicated. He's even more complicated when he's in love. And it's even **_**worse **_**when I have a cold. So, again, I apologize for the delay.**

**I'd like to send out a special thanks to AngieL for listening to me ramble and bitch about how this chapter drove me nuts. It's much appreciated, lady!**

**And, of course, to all of the rest of you! You're amazing. Every review and alert just made me smile like an ass and sing even louder. I'd like to do something for all of you and I do have something in mind, but it'll take me a few more chapters to get it ready. So hang on for me and know that there's something in the works for each and every one of you. Until then, I hope that you enjoy chapter thirteen!**

~*~

***Edward***

I groaned loudly and unhappily, burying my face even further into the back of Bella's neck when I heard the alarm go off the next morning. She hummed, reaching behind her to place her hand on the back of my head as I heard her yawn.

"Gotta get up," she mumbled, gently scraping her nails down the back of my head.

I shivered, my arms tightening around her waist as I threw one of my legs over both of hers.

"No," I mumbled, dipping my head slightly to place a gentle kiss against the back of her neck.

She laughed groggily, dragging her hand out of my hair and down my cheek, yawning again as she turned over. She reached over me and I heard her slapping at the alarm a few times before it shut off, returning her arm back underneath the covers and snuggling against me.

"I have to go to work and you need to drive Alice to the airport," she whispered, gently nudging her nose against mine.

I slowly opened my eyes to meet hers, a smile immediately forming on my lips and my arms tightening around her waist again.

This was how I wanted to wake up every day for the rest of my life; tangled up in her and completely content. She was the first and last person I wanted to see every day.

"She can get a cab," I mumbled, gently rubbing my thumbs against her back. "And you should just close for the day. You won't be missing anything."

She laughed softly, her voice still a little groggy as she rubbed the end of her nose against mine again.

"She would never let you live it down if you made her take a cab and I can't close today. There's only about two weeks until Christmas and I can't afford to close."

The small stab to my heart almost made me wince. Two weeks until Christmas meant that it was only a week and a few days until I had to get on a plane and fly to Washington without Bella.

"Yeah," I said softly, gently brushing my lips across hers. "It was a nice thought, though."

She smiled and brought her hand out from the under the blankets to place it on my neck, gently running her thumb across my jaw.

"Four more days and you're stuck with me for an entire week."

I smiled again, nodding enthusiastically.

"What ever am I gonna do with you?"

She laughed and shrugged, her thumb still tracing my jaw as she leaned in and placed a gentle kiss against my lips.

"You seemed to have a reason for getting me that vacation, so it's totally up to you."

I grinned at her and she laughed loudly, ducking her head and burying her nose into my chest. I placed my chin on the top of her head, taking a deep breath as I pulled her even tighter against me when her hand fell from my neck and back under the blankets.

God, I never wanted to let her go.

"We'll see where it takes us, how does that sound?" I asked softly, leaning down to press a kiss against her forehead before resting my chin back on her head.

"Yeah," she yawned, looking up at me again. "So what are you gonna do for the rest of the day?"

My breath caught in my throat as she ran her fingertips over my abs and my hands bunched into fists against her back.

"Uhm," I managed, closing my eyes tightly.

She had to know what she was doing to me. She was entirely too good at rendering me completely speechless and breathless not to.

"Enjoy the silence," I breathed out.

"She wasn't that bad."

She trailed her fingers up and down, finding the grooves I was forced to work hard for thanks to the personal trainer from hell Jeannie insisted I needed and I barely bit back a moan.

"You were at work while she tortured me," I breathed, my heart pounding in my ears as I leaned into her touch. "I'm going to love the peace and quiet."

"In that case, maybe I should spend the night at my own place."

My eyes popped open and I quickly flipped her on her back, rolling on top of her and settling easily between her legs.

I had to bite my lip – _hard_ – to keep _that_ moan from sounding out of my throat.

God _damn_, she felt amazing against me.

"Why?" I finally managed when the urge to find out what else felt pretty damn good against me had abated.

"So that you can fully enjoy your peace and quiet," she said simply, shrugging her shoulders and smiling innocently up at me.

She reached up to wrap her arms around my neck, her fingers dancing along the back of it.

I stared down at her, somewhere between wanting to laugh hysterically and cry my damn eyes out in total frustration.

Instead, I dipped my head and kissed a trail to her ear, sucking the bottom into my mouth. I smiled triumphantly at the small whimper that sounded out of her mouth and gently scraped my teeth against the edge of her ear.

"You are my peace," I whispered.

She arched her back slightly when I ran my tongue along the bottom of her ear, her hands twisting into my hair.

"I can't enjoy it if you aren't around."

"I… hm," she hummed, her nails gently scraping against the back of my head. "Edward."

"Yes?" I asked innocently, moving away from her ear to kiss down her neck and onto her throat.

"I… you need to… oh, Christ."

"Yes, love?" I whispered, kissing up her throat until I reached her chin.

"I have to do laundry tonight!" she blurted out, her breathing still uneven.

I laughed, throwing my head back and rolling off of her to stare up at the ceiling.

"What in the hell does that have to do with anything?"

I looked over at her to see that she had merely turned her head to look over at me, her cheeks red as she bit her bottom lip.

"I, uh… well… I don't really know."

"Bella," I laughed softly, turning on my side to face her. "I'm just trying to get you to stop running back to your own damn house."

She smiled and turned on her side as well, resting her head on the pillow and reaching up to trail her fingertips up and down my arm.

"I wasn't actually going to go," she clarified. "Just like to see you squirm."

"Mhmm," I mumbled, grinning as I grabbed her hand and twined our fingers together. "Well, it works both ways, my love."

"So I see."

I leaned forward, pressing my lips to hers.

"So it's laundry tonight, huh?" I asked, backing away only to rest my forehead against hers.

"Yeah," she sighed heavily, kissing me again. "It seems that I've run out of clean clothes."

"Can't have that," I mumbled, merely pushing forward as she pulled away from me and keeping her lips against mine. "I don't have a washer or dryer here."

"Are you serious?"

I nodded, kissing her again.

I would gladly spend the rest of my life kissing her if there was any way that I could've. Hell, I would've stayed right here for the rest of eternity if it was at all possible. I never wanted to move.

"I've never been here long enough to have to worry about it."

"Do _you_ need to do laundry?"

I shrugged a shoulder, grunting as I kissed her again.

"Probably."

She laughed and gently pushed me away from her, shaking her head as I pouted at her.

"All right, I know what we're doing tonight. You, me, our laundry, my house, seven-thirty tonight; got it?"

"_Our_ laundry, huh?"

Even that stupid little word – _our_ – had my heart fluttering embarrassingly in my chest. Just to hear it and know that she was including me as if everything we owned was already twisted together was enough to make me feel like I was flying.

"Yes," she laughed, nodding. "I will not have a dirty boyfriend."

I grinned and pulled her against me again, burying my face into her hair as she continued to laugh and wrap herself around me again.

"Can't have that, either."

"No, we can't." She laughed and placed a lingering, small, soft kiss against my chest, once again successful in stealing away any and all abilities I may have possessed at one point in time to make my jaw form words. "And until then, we need to get up."

Before I could react properly, she'd rolled away from me and was out of the bed, swinging open the door to reveal Alice standing on the other side.

Bella screamed in surprise and I groaned, grabbing her pillow and placing it over my head.

And the morning had been going so well…

"Morning, Bella! I made you coffee," she chirped.

"T-Thanks, Alice. I'm uhm…"

"Come with me!"

I visibly flinched and threw the pillow across the room, sitting up straight and staring hard at Alice.

"No!"

She rolled her eyes, placing her hands on Bella's shoulders and leading her across the hallway.

I knew what she was doing. I knew what she planned on doing and I didn't want her to even think about it. Not with Bella, not this early in the morning and not when I'd been so damn relaxed a second ago.

The last thing I wanted Alice to do was scare Bella away. After all the shit we already had to deal with, this wasn't something _anyone_ in my life should have to go through.

"Alice," I warned, quickly flinging the blankets off my legs and standing up.

"Get dressed, Edward! My flight leaves at eight!" she called out over her shoulder before leading Bella into the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind the both of them.

I lunged for the doorknob only to find that the conniving little twit had locked it already.

"Alice, it's too early for this! Bella, I'm sorry!" I called out, pounding on the door once.

I heard them mumbling quietly on the other side before I heard the lock flip and Bella's head popped out, a small reassuring smile on her face.

"It's okay," she laughed, reaching one arm out to place it on my cheek. "We'll be fine."

"I'm…"

"Edward," she laughed, opening the door a little further to lean up and kiss me. "Go get dressed, okay? You've got a long day ahead of you."

"So do you," I mumbled, grabbing her wrist and holding her in place long enough for me to kiss her again. "You shouldn't have to deal with this, too."

"Girl talk," she said quietly, stroking her thumb across my cheek. "It's fine."

"You promise?" I asked, rubbing my thumb across the underside of her wrist and leaning my forehead against hers.

"I promise."

"Can I at least have my toothbrush then?"

She laughed and before she could even move, Alice had thrown both my toothbrush and toothpaste over her head and out into the hallway. I pursed my lips as I heard them hit the wall and then fall to the floor behind me.

"Thank you, Alice," I said dryly.

"No problem, big brother. Now let go of Bella and go do whatever it is that you do in the mornings."

I groaned and Bella laughed, kissing me again before gently prying her wrist out of my hand and closing the door.

I huffed, turning around and grabbing my toothbrush and toothpaste from the floor before walking downstairs.

Oh, yes, it was definitely going to be a very long day.

~*~

"Alice! We _have_ to go!" I yelled up the stairs an hour later. "You're going to miss your damn flight!"

Bella had left for work about twenty minutes ago – with a bright smile on her face, pin straight hair and some kind of shiny gloss on her lips that tasted faintly like raspberries - and Alice had yet to actually come back downstairs. I don't know what the hell she was doing, but if we didn't leave the house in the next ten minutes, Alice was spending another night here.

And I _really_ didn't want that. I had plans with Bella and Bella only tonight – my sister was not allowed to ruin the rest of the limited time I had with my girlfriend.

"I'm leaving some stuff for Bella! I'll be down in a minute! Did you get my stuff packed in the car?"

"Yes!" I yelled, instantly annoyed. "Your shit is in the car!"

She hadn't even _asked_ if I would put her mammoth suitcases back in the car; no, she'd actually _ordered_ me to put them there.

I'd never been so close to murdering her as I was right now. I'd never be able to go home to my family ever again, but at this point, I began thinking that it might be worth it in the end.

"Alice!" I yelled again, listening carefully to hear her absurdly high heels sounding on the floors above me. "We _need_ to go!"

"Do you really want to get rid of me that quickly, big brother?" she yelled back.

"Yes, _princess_, I do!"

I winced when I heard shattering sounds from above me and groaned, leaning forward against the banister and resting my head in my hands.

"Whoops!" I heard her sarcastically exclaim.

I fisted my hands in my hair and pulled, closing my eyes tightly and taking deep, even breaths in a sad effort to calm the raging urge to go up there and throw her out of the bedroom window.

The wrath I'd have to deal with from Jasper and the rest of my family would probably be very much worth it if I didn't have to deal with this anymore.

But the feel of my fingers in my hair made my head snap up.

I needed my hat. There was no fucking way in hell that I was going out in public without it. Especially when Alice had managed to annoy me beyond belief; the last thing I needed was to get a hysterical email from Jeannie asking why the hell I attacked an innocent fan in an airport.

Hell, there wouldn't be a point in going back to California either. I'd have to stay here.

A grin lit up my face as I damn near skipped to the front door and grabbed my jacket off of the rocking chair.

I could stay here with Bella. I could always be with her. There would be no need to leave and no need to put myself through the kind of torture I'd feel at being away from her for an extended amount of time.

Maybe attacking someone wouldn't be a bad idea, after all.

"Okay, I'm ready!" Alice clicked down the stairs, her hands in the air as she walked over to me. "I hope you didn't like that vase you had on your night stand."

She smiled innocently as she grabbed her coat.

"As a matter of fact, I didn't." I smiled smugly down at her as she scowled and jabbed her arms into her coat. "But mom did."

"Fuck," she mumbled, snatching up her purse and slinging it over her shoulder. "How much did she spend on that?"

"I have no idea, but I know it was expensive."

She groaned again, walking out the front door ahead of me as I locked it behind me and continued to damn near skip to the car. I unlocked it, opening the back door and grabbing the bandana from where I'd thrown both it and the hat when I'd gotten back from the airport the last time.

Slamming the door, I opened the driver's side, rolling my eyes as I saw Alice primping in the small mirror in the passenger seat.

"You just left a mirror, Alice."

"Shut it," she sang, slapping the visor up as she looked over at me. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not going anywhere near that airport without my hat on."

"That hat is ugly."

"Yes, but it'll keep us both from being mauled and deterred while trying to get you on that damn plane."

"My visit was not that bad!" she insisted, huffing as she crossed her arms over her chest and pouted at my porch stairs.

"No," I started flippantly as I tied the bandana at the base of my neck. "You just drove me crazy."

"Got you to admit that you loved Bella, though." She sat up straight in her seat, immediately smug again. "And it would've taken you a hell of a lot longer to do that if I wasn't here."

"I would've figured it out eventually," I grumbled, smoothing the top of the bandana down before settling in my seat and pulling the seat belt across my lap.

"Yeah, while _you_ were on the plane to come home."

I growled, sticking the keys into the ignition and starting the car.

That wasn't something I really wanted to think about right now. I didn't want to think about me being on a plane, flying away from the only happiness I'd been able to find in a very long time without knowing exactly when I would be able to return.

But I was pretty damn sure that I would've put the pieces together about how I felt for Bella before that moment showed up.

"I would've figured it out before that, Alice. Give me a little more credit."

"Why?" she breathed, laughing as I put the car in gear and backed out of the driveway. "You still wouldn't know it if I wasn't here to steer you in the right direction."

"Not true."

"Whatever you say," she sang, digging her sunglasses out of her purse and quickly sliding them on her nose as I started down the road. "You are amazingly unobservant when it comes to how that woman feels about you, Edward."

"What are you babbling on about?" I grumbled, the good mood that the thoughts of staying with Bella had put me in slowly slipping away the more Alice kept talking. "I am not."

"Would you have realized that she loved you without hearing it from her? Would you have known that every little touch, every little smile from you makes her entire day?"

I slowly looked over at her, tilting my head to the side as I slowed the car to a stop at the end of the road.

"Excuse me?"

"That's what I thought."

I glared at the small house in front of us before looking up and down the street.

"Would you get on with your point, Alice?"

"We have an entire hour, Edward." She looked pointedly at the road in front of us. "I might as well take my time with it."

"Alice!" I exclaimed, harshly gunning the engine and taking the turn a little more quickly than absolutely necessary. "I will not hesitate to wreck this car."

"But then you'd be stuck with me for a lot longer than originally planned and plus, you wouldn't be spending your last week with Bella like you want to. So I don't think you're going to do that."

She brought her legs up and rested her feet on the dashboard in front of her and I winced.

I may have just threatened to wreck the entire car and her sharp heels resting on the dashboard were a hell of a lot better than wrapping us around a tree, but I'd still have to pay for any damage she caused with those damn things.

"Would you get on with your point then please?" I asked as nicely as I could through my teeth.

And I barely had a two week reprieve from this torture before I'd have to be sucked right back into it when I returned to Washington.

Maybe I'd just stay in New York. I could spend Christmas and the New Year with Bella. I'd tell my parents that there was just no way I'd be able to find a flight this late in the year using the excuse that I'd been so rushed to get out of California that I completely forgot about booking a different flight for the twenty-second.

I sighed and shook my head, seething in the silence that Alice had left us in with her lips twisted to the side and her pointer finger gently tapping her cheek.

My mother would never believe that I'd forgotten something like that. My father would probably fly over here to get me upon my mother's insistence and Emmett… well, Emmett would probably be excited that he'd have more food to scarf down with me not there.

"Do you wanna know what she said to me this morning?"

"Yes," I blurted out quickly.

In fact, it had taken a hell of a lot of sheer willpower not to march up those stairs and eavesdrop on every little thing they were talking about.

I didn't trust my sister to be alone with Bella for long, but when she'd come down the stairs with a bright smile on her face and kissed me before she left for work, I imagined that it hadn't been all that bad.

It didn't keep me from wondering, of course, but I'd been satisfied that she hadn't run out the door screaming.

"I asked her how she felt about you leaving."

My heart sank and I quickly decided that maybe I didn't want to hear this after all.

"Alice…"

"She said that it was going to be hard and that it was going to hurt," she talked over my protests, her pointer finger in the air as she dropped her feet thankfully back to the floorboards, "but that she loved you enough to wait for you to come back home to her."

The snapping that I'd felt yesterday morning when I realized that I was in love with her happened again and I sucked in another deep breath, desperately wanting to turn the car around and just… _find her_.

Find her, gather her in my arms and _never_ let her go anywhere ever again.

I wanted to see her. Now.

No, want wasn't a strong enough word.

I _needed_ to see Bella. I needed to get _home_ to Bella. Because Bella was home to me and I didn't want to waste anymore time than I had to being without her.

"Oh," I breathed, my hands tightening on the steering wheel.

But I needed to see her without Alice looking over our shoulders. And I couldn't do that without driving Alice an hour away to the damn airport first.

"See? You have no idea, Edward." Then she sighed heavily, shaking her head sadly as she slapped my shoulder. "You two really need to tell each other how you feel and get it over with. You're driving _me_ crazy."

"She only said she was falling," I managed, clearing my throat as I relaxed my hands.

"You are an absolute moron."

I pursed my lips and rolled my eyes.

"Thank you," I said dryly.

"She loves you enough to _wait for you_. She _loves_ you enough. She's _in love_ with you, you blind, pig-headed, stubborn fool."

"Did she tell you that?"

"She's made it pretty obvious, Edward. A girl doesn't usually play the best friends card unless there are some very strong feelings involved."

"Strong feelings, but maybe not love."

"You're an idiot."

"You know, for someone who doesn't appreciate being called a certain endearment, you throw insults around a hell of a lot."

"I'm allowed," she said innocently, shrugging her shoulders as if it made all the sense in the world.

"Of course you are," I sighed, shaking my head.

"Edward, she loves you. And you love her. And I love her. And I love the two of you together. So stop being such a man and tell her already!"

"It has to be perfect, Alice."

"You can make any moment perfect, Edward." I could practically hear her rolling her eyes and rolled my own. "If you keep waiting for it, you'll miss it."

I didn't say anything, realizing that she was right yet again, but refusing to acknowledge it in her presence. So we sat in silence for about a mile before I finally spoke up, hoping to get her off the subject so that she wouldn't gloat like I knew she was doing already.

"You know, I'm sure Jasper really misses you."

God knows, I hoped he did. Her know-it-all attitude and guessing everything right was really getting on my nerves.

I honestly don't know how he put up with it all the time.

Two days with her and I'd wanted to kill her more times than I could count.

"I'm pretty positive that he does."

She sat up a little straighter in the seat, smiling over at me.

And what I wouldn't give to have the same confidence in my relationship that she has in hers. I know that everything with Bella is pretty damn solid and strong right now, but what about when I leave? Will it still be that way when I'm across the country and we won't see each other every day?

Will she still want me the way she does now?

"And stop fucking worrying!"

She smacked my chest with the back of her hand and I gasped for air, looking over at her as I forced my lungs to start working again.

So much for trying to distract her.

"Do you really think that's a good idea when I'm driving?" I rasped out, rubbing the spot where her wedding ring had imbedded itself into my chest for a moment.

"Don't be a dumbass," she said simply, shrugging her shoulders. "I wouldn't have to hurt you if you'd just listen to me once in a while."

"You could just give me a little bit of room to breathe on this, you know. It's not like I'm an expert on this or anything."

"When it's right – and you _know_ it's right with her – why would you spend the limited amount of time you have with her wondering about _anything_? You're going to have a hard enough time with this as it is and you want to sit around with your thumb up your ass?"

I grit my teeth together, twisting my hands around the steering wheel once the stinging in my chest subsided and my breathing evened out. I knew she was right and that's what made it all the worse. But she couldn't just be _nice_ about it, could she?

"She's going to miss you," she said softly.

I looked over at her, my jaw relaxing as she tipped the sunglasses down on her nose.

"And she's going to have a lot of doubts about everything. Any normal woman in this situation would, so don't go jumping off to conclusions."

I pressed my lips together in a hard line, looking back to the road and swallowing hard.

I didn't want Bella to have doubts about everything. I wanted her to _know_ that I was going to do everything that I possibly could to protect what I'd finally found with her.

"What do I do?" I asked quietly.

"Stop wasting time and worrying about things that you _can_ control. Tell her how you feel; tell her everything that you've been holding back because if you don't tell her before you leave, you're just going to end up hurting each other."

I didn't want that. Being away from her and only living for phone calls at the end of each day was going to be hard enough; add in unnecessary pain and doubt on both parts and it was altogether possible that I'd just curl up into a ball and die.

"I…" I started, taking a deep breath and licking my lips. "I love her."

"Yes, you do," Alice stated, her voice chipper and upbeat as she slid the glasses back into place.

"I love her," I said again, sitting up a little straighter in my seat and smiling stupidly. "I love Bella."

"Say it as many times as you want, big brother." She put her feet back on the dashboard and I narrowed my eyes at her pointy heels. "It doesn't bother me."

I sucked in another deep breath and looked back to the road, twisting my hands around the steering wheel again.

"I love Bella. I'm in love with Bella."

"Keep going," Alice sang, reaching over and turning up the radio.

"No, I think I'm… I love her," I grinned, interrupting myself and relaxing my hands enough to drum my thumbs on the center of the wheel.

I couldn't stop saying it. I wanted to, because it was really very embarrassing confessing my love for Bella with my sister sitting in the seat next to me, but I just… couldn't.

"Is there anything other than country music on these stupid stations?" she grumbled, fidgeting with the dial.

I bit my bottom lip to keep the next confession of love from pouring out of my lips instead of the answer my sister rightfully wanted, but wasn't able to keep the grin off my face.

I never wanted to stop feeling this way. I never wanted to be without her, I never wanted to feel any other way than the way I felt right now, and I never wanted to know what it felt like to be without her.

"I'm gonna marry her," I breathed out, my breath coming out in a big _whoosh_ at the impact those words had on me.

I blinked at the car that pulled out in front of me, tilting my head to the side. That wasn't something that I expected to come out of my mouth. I hadn't even been thinking about it.

Had I?

No. I wasn't going to say that. I know I wasn't going to say that.

I'd _never_ said that before. To anyone. Not even when I was little and thought that the most perfect woman was my mother; I'd _never_ thought of marriage to anyone before.

But, surprisingly – and although it _was_ there floundering just underneath the surface – I wasn't all too freaked out about it. An entire lifetime with Bella wasn't such a bad thing to think about after all.

"Yep," Alice chirped, nodding as she continued to fight with the radio. "I could've told you that."

"That's… well, that's… uh… soon? Isn't it?" I mumbled, twisting my hands around the steering wheel again.

"What did I tell you?" she sighed heavily, shaking her head at the radio as she continued to search for a station that didn't blare country music.

I knew of one. Actually, I knew of about five, but it was way more interesting to see her get annoyed with having to go through every single station before she'd find what she wanted.

"It's not like you're going to propose to her tomorrow, Edward, so just know that it'll happen one day and focus on telling her how you feel about her. Don't think too much into it."

"But, Alice…"

"Edward! If you think about it too much and you let it consume everything that you're thinking about, you're going to ruin it. Accept it," she said, looking up at me. "And deal with it when the time is right."

I sucked in another deep breath and nodded, relaxing my hands yet again and leaning back in the seat.

She was right. I was a professional at over-thinking things and ruining everything while I was doing it and if there was one thing in my life that I didn't want to ruin, it was the relationship that I had with Bella.

It was the one thing that meant everything to me and I refused to let all of my stupid overanalyzing tendencies ruin it.


	14. Say It Again

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**All right *cracks knuckles*.**

**So. This chapter is quite the emotional roller coaster, but a hell of a lot happens during it that I think you're all going to enjoy.**

**If not, I apologize, but it needed to happen. Trust me on that.**

**It is also quite long; fifteen pages worth, so I hope that you all have a comfortable place to sit and time to read it all.**

**Thank you, once again, to all of the lovely reviewers that always leave me their thoughts. I adore each and every one of you more than I can possibly put into words.**

**Oh! And I have a song for this chapter! "Say It Again" by Marie Digby. It only applies to about half of it, but it still works!**

**Enjoy!**

~*~

***Bella***

The store was a mess. There were stacks of books piled up at my feet, the display for the most recent bestseller had been knocked down by an over-active child about an hour ago and I hadn't sat down since I got here. My back and feet were killing me and my stomach was grumbling at me, demanding to be fed. There was a line a mile long in front of me as I stood in front of the register. There had been a few mouthy customers that had chosen to tell me how they didn't appreciate standing in line for fifteen minutes.

There were only thirteen more shopping days until Christmas and naturally, everyone in town had decided to wait until now to come to my little corner of the world. Plus, we were supposed to get one hell of a snowstorm tonight, so they all had to get out now and make it seem that the world was going to end with eight inches of freshly fallen snow.

I should've been in a hell of a mood. I should've been glaring at everyone that asked for help when I was clearly in the middle of ringing out what felt like tens of thousands of people. I should've been impatiently watching the clock for six when I could close and be alone for an hour to peacefully do some paperwork until going home.

_Home. Edward._

But I wasn't. I smiled and politely told impatient customers that as soon as I was able, I'd help them with whatever they needed. I'd barely glanced at the clock since everyone started piling in and I was even humming along with the small radio Jessica had brought in a few months ago to keep the silence at bay during the slower days.

I was in a damn good mood.

I was spending the night with my boyfriend. No sisters, no friends threatening him – just the two of us, our laundry and my completely empty house to ourselves.

Plus, I'd gotten all of my feelings out in the open this morning. Granted, I'd told his sister instead of him, but I felt so much lighter and happier about all of it.

When I'd told Alice – who had been very intent on straightening my hair at the time – that I loved him enough to wait for him, she'd gotten this smile on her face that I didn't quite understand until she'd set that damn contraption down and hugged me until I was gasping for air.

And then she'd said, "I'm so glad he found you" and every little doubt I'd had about her still having any sort of reservations towards me disappeared.

I'd hugged her back just as tightly, feeling like an idiot when my eyes teared up. When she finally let me go, she laughed and said that the hard part was over – "Falling is half the battle, after all" – and now I just had to tell him.

And I was _going_ to tell him. Tonight. We had no time to lose and I wasn't going to be an idiot about it anymore.

No, I hadn't ever been the one to say it first – and the small bit of terror in the pit of my stomach was most definitely there and keeping me very well informed about the whole idea – but it was different this time and I knew it. My heart knew it, so really, what else was there to think about?

We were running out of time for important things like this. We didn't have all the time in the world to worry about this – we had a week and a few days until we were separated from each other and I wasn't going to have him leave without knowing how much he meant to me.

He deserved to know. And I wasn't going to let myself think about what would happen if he didn't feel the same way about me.

Because I was on too much of a high to let it bother me. I _wanted_ to tell him; I _needed_ him to know that I loved him. He needed to know that this wasn't just some rebound thing that would disappear when he left. This was real and I wasn't going to let him think that it wasn't.

"Hey, beautiful, you got a minute?"

I looked up to see Edward standing in front of me, a pile of the bestseller books that had been scattered around on the floor by the window in his hands as he grinned out at me from underneath his hat.

And even though he really did look ridiculous in the hat and it was pretty damn laughable, my heart still fluttered in my chest when I saw him.

"I didn't even see you come in," I smiled, taking the books from his hands and looking around him to see that five more people had just walked in. "And sadly, no, I don't…"

"Have anything to worry about!"

I jumped when Angela walked behind the counter and gently pushed me out of the way, easily taking the books from my hands and placing them on the counter before she shrugged out of her coat.

And when the hell did _she_ get here? I couldn't have really been that oblivious to everything, could I have? I know I was blocking out a whole hell of a lot of other emotions and senses right now, but did I block out the ability to spot my boyfriend and best friend at the same time?

"Did you two time this or something?"

"No, but he did scare the shit out of me," she laughed, nodding at Edward. "I had no idea why this creepy guy in an ugly cowboy hat was talking to me like he knew me."

"She didn't believe it was really me," he continued, laughing as he moved off to the side and grabbed my hand, gently pulling me out from behind the counter.

"Made him take the whole damn thing off and felt like an ass when he was who he said he was."

I laughed, shaking my head at the two of them. It was nice to see that Edward was getting along with at least one of my best friends. It was even nicer to see that Angela was accepting him, as well.

"But what are you doing here, Ang? You have a studio to run, you know."

"I also have a few hours to kill before I have anymore clients coming in. I know Jessica is out this week and figured that I'd come in and give you a hand." She nodded to Edward as another customer came up to the counter and plopped an entire stack of books onto it. "Go relax, Bella. I've got it all under control."

"Do you know how…?"

"Go!" she laughed, quickly ringing in the first book and smiling brightly at the customer standing in front of her. "This is the same software that I use at the studio. I know what I'm doing."

"But it's really…"

"Bella," Edward breathed into my ear.

My eyes immediately slid closed and I leaned into him, a small smile slowly forming on my lips as I squeezed his hand. Really, that was all the persuasion I'd need.

"I'll call you if I need you."

I opened my eyes to see Angela smirking knowingly at me before she tuned me out completely and struck up a quick conversation with the mother of two she was ringing out.

"I, uhm…" I mumbled, blinking stupidly at her before turning to Edward. "What…?"

He laughed and squeezed my hand. "Your office?"

I nodded slowly and let him lead me through the doorway and up the stairs, pushing through my door and closing it behind me.

"Alice got on the plane okay?" I asked, my brain finally able to form an entire sentence.

"Yes and I really feel bad for the person sitting in the seat next to her."

I laughed and welcomed the feeling that flowed through me as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me against him. I wrapped my arms around his neck, resting my head against his chest and sighing as I closed my eyes again.

This was what I craved every day; being in his arms, safe, happy and without a care in the entire world.

"I like her, you know. She's a bit overwhelming at times…"

"A bit?" he scoffed, his hands making slow circles on my back.

"…But she means well!" I laughed, opening my eyes and looking up at him. "She loves you, Edward, and she just wants you happy."

And there it was; the perfect lead in to tell him that I loved him. All I had to do was say four little words - _"And so do I."_ It was simple.

I mean, I was going to tell him anyway - why not now?

No, it wasn't romantic by any means, but that wasn't really such a bad thing, was it? In all reality, what did it matter _where_ I said it as long as I actually did say it?

So why was I on the verge of passing out and letting Edward lead me to the horribly uncomfortable chair behind my desk if it didn't matter?

"Bella? Bella, breathe. _Please_ breathe, Bella," he begged, grabbing my face in his hands as I plopped unceremoniously into the chair.

I sucked in a deep breath, filling my lungs completely and looking up at him to smile nervously.

"Sorry."

"What was that all about? Are you okay? You scared the shit out of me."

I placed my hands on his wrists as his thumbs ran gently over my cheeks, meeting his worried eyes and biting my bottom lip.

Okay, so that didn't really work out all that well for me.

"I was just... thinking... about..." I trailed off, looking to the side as I tried to make sense of my scattered thoughts.

Oh, Christ, this wasn't going the way I'd seen it playing out in my head.

"Bella," he whispered, getting down on his knees in front of me. "Talk to me."

I moved his hands from my cheeks to link my fingers through his, looking down to study the way they just seemed to fit together. No awkwardness in that second before our fingers intertwined, no repositioning of any kind because we just _fit _together. Taking one more deep breath, I looked up at him again.

"Do you know how much you mean to me?" I whispered, squeezing his hands. "I have never felt this way for anyone else before and I..." I shook one hand out of his to place it against his neck, rubbing my thumb over his jaw line. "Edward, I..."

We both jumped when the phone beside me beeped to signify that Angela was paging me and I sighed, shaking my head as I leaned forward and dipped my head underneath his hat to kiss him as I shook my other hand free and reached over to grab the phone.

So close - oh so close. It was _right there_; I could practically hear myself saying it and almost feel his lips against mine when I finally did.

Because I wasn't going to let myself think about what would happen if he didn't say it back or just stared at me blankly when I finally got it out. If I did, I'd never be able to say anything to him ever again.

"You need me?" I asked as I backed away from Edward and sat back in the chair.

He stood up, leaning over to breathe a kiss against my neck before whispering into my ear, "I do."

A shiver ran down my spine and I barely contained the small moan that threatened its way out of my mouth as I tried to concentrate on listening to Angela on the other end.

That wasn't fair in any way, shape or form.

"Okay, so, I don't know how to do the gift certificate thing," she mumbled sheepishly. "I'm sorry, Bella."

"Don't be sorry," I laughed nervously as Edward gently tugged on the sleeve of my sweater, replacing the fabric with his lips. "I'll be down in a minute."

He growled softly into my neck before standing up straight as I hung up the phone and looked up at him.

"Sorry," I laughed when I saw his bottom lip pop out in a pout.

"Not your fault," he sighed dramatically, shaking his head. "You're at work. You have obligations that don't involve letting me suck on your shoulder for extended periods of time."

"Not that I don't enjoy it," I laughed, gently reaching up to tug on his belt loops before standing up.

He smiled and kissed me quickly before walking with me to the door and pulling it open for me.

"Seven-thirty?"

I nodded, smiling at him as I walked in front of him and started down the stairs.

"Would you mind grabbing your shirt and my bag from your place before you come over? I didn't think about it before I left."

"You weren't really allowed a choice."

"Would you be nice to her?" I laughed, reaching behind me to gently slap at his thigh. "I'm sure she could've been so much worse."

"You're definitely right about that," he mused as we reached the bottom of the stairs. "But it was bad enough as it was."

I shook my head as he turned me to face him, smiling up at him as I lazily draped my arms over his shoulders.

"You're busy," he mumbled, his hands resting lightly on my waist.

I merely nodded, shrugging one shoulder as I linked my hands behind his neck. "Appears that way, doesn't it?"

He laughed, bending down and lightly pressing his lips against mine.

"Smart ass," he mumbled, backing away.

"Sometimes."

He laughed and kissed me again. "I'll see you when you get out of work. What did you want for dinner?"

"I'll make something when I get there."

"Are you sure? I can attempt to make... something."

I laughed and shook my head. "Just wait until I get home, okay?"

He smiled softly at me and nodded, leaning in and kissing me again before letting me go.

"I'll see you tonight."

"Yeah..." I trailed off, biting my bottom lip and stealing one more kiss before backing away from him.

He laughed and reached out, grabbing my hand and squeezing it quickly before disappearing into the crowd I hadn't realized was standing behind us.

And what made it just that much worse was that more than half of them had been watching us. He kept walking, his head down and his face completely covered as he disappeared out of the door.

My cheeks instantly started to burn when the door slammed shut behind him and I ducked my head before weaving through them and walking up to the counter to stand next to Angela, who was merely smirking at me.

"Shut up," I grumbled, gently nudging her with my elbow as I reached into the bottom drawer and grabbed a bundle of the gift certificates.

"Is that your boyfriend, Bella?"

My head snapped up when I heard the familiar raspy voice of one of my regular customers, Mrs. Carbody, and I laughed nervously, nodding slowly.

Oh, God, I hope she hadn't seen enough of his face to recognize him. She was the town gossip and the last thing either of us needed was to have her know who I was currently dating. It would quite literally make the local news and that wasn't something either of us needed to deal with right now.

She was pushing ninety years old and lived alone - all her children gone and in different states and her husband had died a few years ago. She came in at least once a week to talk to me about anything and everything that she'd seen on the aforementioned local news program and no matter how hard I tried, there was no escaping her.

"Well, honey," she rasped, leaning heavily against the counter. "That boy has one mighty fine ass."

Angela threw her head back and laughed, her hands covering her face as she collapsed into the chair behind her. My own face must've been about as bright as a fire truck and all I wanted to do was go back to hide in my office.

"Yes, he does," I squeaked, fighting with the paperclip that was holding the gift certificates together. "How much did you want on this?"

She waved off the certificate, resting both elbows on the counter and leaning in at almost the same time that everyone else did.

"How long have you been with him, sweetheart?"

Since _when_ did my love life suddenly become the most interesting thing of the day? Wasn't there someone out there hijacking cars or some such bullshit that they could turn their attention to?

"Honestly, Mrs. Carbody, I really don't feel comfortable talking about this," I begged, laughing nervously as I continued to fight with the stupid paperclip on the certificates.

And since when did working a paperclip suddenly require a college degree?

"It's just so nice to see you happy, Bella," she smiled sweetly at me as I looked up at her. "You glow."

"You're not pregnant, are you?" Jane Cross, one of the pharmacists that worked at Stick's asked as she leaned a hip against one of the chairs across the room.

"No!" I said quickly, shaking my head and taking a deep breath as my eyes widened.

I needed to have sex to get pregnant and I was pretty damn positive that that hadn't happened yet.

"Okay, okay," Angela wheezed behind me, finally standing up and spreading her arms in the air once she'd stopped laughing. "That's about enough of that, I think. Bella thanks you for your interest, but we're losing daylight and need to get this all wrapped up for the day."

And as the room heaved a collective heavy sigh, I wanted to get down on my hands and knees, kiss her feet and promise that I would be her personal slave for as long as she wanted me to be for that act alone.

"I love you," I whispered to her.

She laughed and slung an arm around my shoulders.

"I love you too. Now show me how to ring in a gift certificate."

I sighed happily as I showed her, infinitely glad that she had gotten the crowd in front of us off of the topic of my love life.

It was mine for a reason. And it wasn't going to be private when Edward went back to California, so if I could keep it from leaking out into the local newspapers even for just a few more days, I'd take it.

~*~

I had no sooner pulled into my driveway at seven-thirty and gotten out of the truck when I saw Edward making his way across the street with my duffel bag and a white trash bag filled with that I assumed was his laundry in his hands.

I'd spent the last hour and a half of the day finishing up the paperwork that I had sorely neglected since Jessica had left for vacation and doing my best _not _to distract myself with thoughts of what could possibly happen tonight when I got home.

He'd said that he'd needed me. I wasn't sure in what form he might've needed me, but it sent a glorious shiver up my spine when thinking about any possible reasons.

I hadn't really been able to get a lot of the paperwork done when I'd begun thinking about it, either. It didn't matter how hard I tried to focus on the report of what I'd be getting in for a shipment next week; all I could think about was how his voice sounded when he whispered into my ear, or the way he'd pulled the shoulder of my sweater down to kiss my skin. It hadn't been easy to keep myself in that chair until I finally did comprehend most of what was coming in for the shipment next week, but I'd somehow managed to do it.

And now, I didn't have to distract myself anymore. I was home, Edward was walking across the road and nothing else mattered any more than it should've.

Laughing, I shook my head at him and reached back into my truck to grab my purse before slamming the door closed and waiting for him, shivering slightly as the wind I hadn't noticed before slapped at my face.

"Had quite a bit of dirty laundry, didn't you?" I asked, smiling as he walked up to me.

"I didn't realize that I'd worn so many clothes already."

He grinned and dropped both bags onto the ground before taking my face in his hands and leaning down to kiss me, his lips urgent and hungry against mine as he pushed me up against the truck.

I sighed against his mouth, dropping my purse and keys on the ground and reaching up to tangle my hands in his hair.

As much as I'd learned to like Alice, I'd missed this. I'd missed being completely pressed up against him as his lips gloriously assaulted mine.

The minimal amount of time that I'd gotten with him each morning before I stepped foot out of the bed hadn't been nearly as satisfying as feeling him pressed up against me with his mouth firmly planted on mine had become.

I felt his lips part above mine and eagerly opened my mouth to his, my tongue greeting his as his hands fell from my face and landed on my hips, jerking me even closer to him.

"Bella," he whispered, breaking away from me to trail his mouth down to my neck.

I tipped my head back, resting it on the truck as his lips continued their trail across to my throat, his tongue flicking out every once in a great while and driving me absolutely crazy.

I fisted my hands in his hair as he trailed his mouth back to my neck, his hands tightly gripping my hips.

"Hm?" I managed to hum out, relaxing my fingers to gently scrape my fingernails across his scalp.

He kissed up to my ear, placing small, feather-light pecks along the bottom of it.

"I love you," he whispered.

I froze and he stopped kissing my ear, instead placing his lips against my neck and holding them there.

Did he just...?

Oh my God, he did.

Right?

I couldn't have imagined that, could I have? It sounded real - and it was definitely his voice as opposed to one I'd dreamed up when thinking of this moment. I wasn't just wishing and imaging that, was I? It sounded too real for it to be one hell of an incredible figment of my imagination. He was too still and too quiet for it not to have been real.

I was only vaguely aware of how fast my heart was beating or how quickly my breathing had sped up as I forced air in and out of my lungs. My hands were still in his hair, my hips were still pressed tightly against his and his lips were still planted gently against my neck.

And as I finally became aware that this was, in fact, very real when his fingertips pressed even more tightly into my hips, a smile slowly started to form on my lips.

He'd said it. He'd said that he loved me. He _loved_ me. _Me_; boring, plain, ordinary, clumsy Bella Swan.

It felt like I was floating; like the world had stopped revolving and the biting, bitter cold wind that was whipping around us ceased to exist. We weren't standing outside of my house with the threat of snow looming in the air or bags of laundry at our feet. We simply _were_ and there was nothing in my entire life that had ever made me feel like this before.

"Bella, if you don't..."

"Do you mean it?" I breathed out, interrupting him and unable to tame the smile that was now spreading across my entire face.

"I'd never lie to you," he breathed, his voice shaky.

I moved my hands to grab the sides of his head, forcing him to face me. He quickly averted his eyes from mine and I had to bite my bottom lip when I saw the tight line he'd pressed his lips into.

"Look at me, Edward. Look at me," I repeated when he stubbornly shook his head once, "and say it again."

His eyes snapped down to mine and I watched his mouth relax as he looked into my eyes.

"Say it again," I whispered, rubbing my thumbs over his jaw line as I swallowed hard.

"Bella, really, if you don't feel that way, it's okay. No harm done," he said quickly, his voice cracking.

"If you really meant it," I bargained, my voice rising as the panic started to creep in, "you will say it again."

He was talking himself out of this. He was standing right in front of me, looking directly into my eyes with his mind in over-drive as he tried to take those beautiful life altering words back.

I saw him swallow hard and sucked in a deep breath as he just stood there, his eyes impossibly sad as he continued to stare into mine. Finally, his mouth opened before it snapped shut again, his jaw twitching underneath my hands.

"It's not that I..." he started slowly.

"I love you," I blurted out, clenching my jaw together tightly. "I'm in love with you, Edward, and damn it, if you don't say it again..."

He cut me off with his lips on mine, once again slamming me against the truck from the minimal amount of space I hadn't realized that I'd created as he braced his hands on either side of me.

I hitched one leg up around his waist, combing my hands through his hair again and gently shifting my hips up into his.

He moaned softly, tearing his lips away from mine and breathing heavily as he looked into my eyes again.

"I love you," he breathed, wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling me away from the truck and pressing me against him. "I love you."

I breathed out a laugh, pulling his lips back to mine and winding my arms around his neck.

"I love you," he breathed, accentuating each word with another kiss. "I'll say it as many damn times as you want."

I laughed again, slowly dropping my leg back to the ground and barely controlling the urge to start doing cartwheels around my driveway.

"I never want you to stop saying it," I breathed, still laughing slightly as I shook my head.

"I love you, Bella," he whispered, resting his forehead against mine and closing his eyes.

I grinned as I trailed my hands out of his hair, over his shoulders and rested them on his chest.

"I love you," I whispered, bouncing up on my toes quickly to gently nudge his nose with mine.

I watched the slow smile spread across his face as his arms tightened around my waist and he opened his eyes to meet mine again.

"I've never…" He took a deep breath and kissed me again before backing away slightly. "I've never been… you're the only one, Bella, and I don't ever want that to change."

I wanted to squeal like a little girl and barely managed to rein it in before I attacked his lips with my own once again, fisting my hands in his shirt.

"And as much as I would love to continue this," he started, laughing quietly as he backed away from me again. "I think we'll both freeze if we stand out here much longer."

Oh, right, yeah. The wind was still whipping around us and the world was still turning despite how I'd forgotten about both and if we did stay out here for much longer, I was pretty confident in saying that I'd probably lose a few fingers from frostbite.

"Yeah," I breathed, nodding as I let go of his shirt and stepped back from him. "Good idea."

He laughed and kissed my cheek before bending down and grabbing the two bags from the ground. I took a deep breath, steadying myself and doing my best to stop looking like an idiot as I smiled at everything around me and bent down to pick up my purse and keys.

"How was work?"

I shrugged, tilting my head to the side as we walked up to my front porch.

"It was work. Angela stayed for about an hour after you left and by then, the rush had pretty much died down."

"I really like her, Bella." I looked back at him to find that he was smiling brightly at me. "She seems like a really good friend."

"She is," I nodded, smiling as I stuck my key in the door and pushed it open, dropping them and my purse on the floor next to me.

Even seeing my lonely old recliner as the only type of furniture in the living room didn't bring me down. I was walking on air and could really care less if I didn't have anything for either of us to sit on while we waited for our laundry.

I stripped my coat off, throwing it over my purse and waited for him to do the same before I began walking ahead of him, our footsteps echoing in the mostly empty dining room as we passed through.

"What do you feel like having for dinner?" I asked as I led him into the kitchen and over to the corner next to the garage door, yanking open the doors to reveal the washer and dryer hiding inside.

"Why don't I have a closet in my kitchen?" he pouted, dropping the bags at his feet once again.

"I'm just cooler than you are." I shrugged easily, flicking open the top of the washer and screaming when I felt his arms come around my waist, lifting me off the floor and turning us around to face the doorway of the kitchen. "Edward!"

"I do believe that I was once on a list for being cooler than anyone else," he said conversationally, his hands dangerously resting on my very ticklish stomach.

"No, that list was for how hot they thought you were," I clarified, pointing up at the ceiling as I looked back at him. "Trust me; there was nothing in that list about you being cooler than anyone else."

"So you read it, hm?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

"Of course I read it," I shrugged easily, biting my bottom lip in order to keep the smile off my face. "Apparently, making you number one only showcased how completely blind some people are."

"_What_?" he screeched, his fingers twitching against my stomach and causing me to whimper and squirm a little in his arms. "You don't seem to be complaining too much when I'm sleeping next to you half clothed at night!"

I bit my lip even harder at the image he'd placed in my mind and quickly grabbed onto his arms, trying to wiggle away from him.

"I can be a good actress when I need to be!"

"Oh, that's it," he growled, his fingertips digging into my stomach and causing me to scream, kicking my legs out. "That was entirely unfair!"

"Edward!" I laughed, digging my fingernails into his arm and squirming against him. "No, stop!"

"Not until you admit that I'm the hottest man on the face of the planet!"

"You're pushing things a bit with that, don't you think?" I managed to breathe out, throwing my head back onto his shoulder and screaming again as he dug his fingertips underneath my ribs.

"You're just a glutton for punishment, aren't you?"

I stopped wiggling despite how his hands kept roaming all over my stomach and did my best not to scream out or laugh as I looked back at him, my chest heaving.

"Did it ever occur to you," I started, twitching as his hands found my sides, "that maybe I _like_ having your hands all over me?"

He stopped and I watched his eyes darken, causing me to swallow hard as he set me back on my feet and turned me around to fully face him.

"Is that so?" he asked, his voice low as his hands rested on my hips for an entirely different reason now.

I nodded, swallowing hard again as I slowly ran my hands up his chest and rested them on his shoulders.

That wasn't a _bad_ reaction, right? He wouldn't do any of it he didn't get some kind of enjoyment out of it… right? He couldn't do it purely to see me wiggle and scream at him, could he?

"Yes," I said boldly, taking a deep breath and squaring my shoulders.

"Well, then," he mumbled, closing the small space between us and quickly dipping his head down to press his lips to mine.

Oh, no, definitely not a bad reaction.

I gasped a little as his cold hands quickly worked their way under my shirt, his fingers splaying on my back and he took that opportunity to stick his tongue in my mouth and stroke mine.

I leaned into him, placing my hands on each side of his neck and running my thumbs gently down his throat, eagerly meeting his tongue with mine. He moved his hands around to my stomach, running the back of his fingers up and down gently even as his lips became urgent against mine.

Okay, so _this_ had to be somewhere close to Heaven at the very least. The smallest touch was leaving little trails of ice and fire combined, sending my entire nervous system into a complete frenzy and leaving me desperately craving all that he was willing to give me.

When I felt his thumbs gently graze the wire of my bra, I moaned softly and arched my back, all but silently begging him to keep going. I didn't care where he was going or what he was planning at this point; I just needed him to keep doing what he was doing.

I moved my hands from his neck, slowly dragging them down his chest before lifting up the hem of his shirt and gliding my hands underneath and over his stomach.

I listened to his sharp intake of breath as I lightly trailed my fingers over his abs and up to his chest.

Yeah, sure, I'd seen him without a shirt on every night for a week, but there was something incredibly different about the way he felt to me this time. It was as if every inch of him was new to me, as if I hadn't been able to do this anytime I truly wanted to.

He took a few steps forward, easily pressing me back against the counter and moving his hands from underneath my shirt. I whimpered at the loss of contact and felt his lips lift into a smirk against mine. I huffed, ready to pull away from him to ask what the problem was until I felt him lifting my shirt from the hem, dragging it up.

"Sneaky," I mumbled as I backed away from him.

"Is this okay?" he whispered, stopping his motions with my shirt just underneath my breasts.

"If I wanted you to stop, I would've told you before," I whispered back, dropping my hands out of his shirt and raising them over my head.

"I want you to be sure."

I dropped my arms again, cupping his face in my hands and gently rubbing my thumbs over his cheeks.

"I love you," I said softly, my heart fluttering in my chest as I watched the smile light up his face. "I'm sure."

And with that, I raised my hands above my head and he slowly pulled my shirt off, throwing it to the side before wrapping his arms around me and kissing me again. My hands went back underneath his shirt and his hands dragged slowly – achingly slowly, actually – across my back, over my shoulders and barely brushing against the sides of my breasts.

Just as his thumbs were starting to dip underneath my bra, there was a series of impatient, loud knocks on the front door that had both of us jumping.

"You've _got_ to be fucking kidding me," I groaned, panting slightly as I pulled away from him.

"Think we can ignore it?" he mumbled, burying his head in my shoulder and kissing my neck.

I shivered, my head rolling back as his mouth continued down my throat and onto my chest.

Oh, God, yes, if he kept going, I'd ignore if the entire world exploded into flames.

The person on the other side of the door had other plans, it seemed, as they began knocking again. Louder and more incessantly.

"Fuck," he groaned, backing away from me to run his hands through his hair.

I wanted to cry when the cold air hit my skin, infinitely annoyed and very pissed off as I bent down to snatch my shirt off the floor and slip it back over my head.

"I'm gonna kill whoever is out there and then we can continue," I seethed, pulling my hair out from the collar of my shirt.

"Don't kill them," he laughed half-heartedly, leaning in to kiss me once more. "I don't want to spend the rest of the night at the county jail trying to bail you out."

"Can I just maim them?"

He shrugged one shoulder and smirked crookedly at me, nodding. "I don't see why not."

"Okay then."

I kissed him again before I walked back into the living room, my eyes narrowed at the front door as I reached it and yanked it open.

I didn't even care if it was Angela or Rosalie – I would gleefully rip off their arms for rudely interrupting what had been started in my kitchen.

My breath caught in my throat and my vision clouded over with the color red when I saw Jake standing on the other side.

Maiming him would simply _not_ be enough of a justifiable punishment.

"What the hell do you want?" I growled, my hand tightening around the doorknob I still gripped tightly in my hand.

"I've tried calling you at _least_ ten damn times in the past week, Bella," he grumbled, his eyes narrowed at me. "I came to get the rest of my stuff out of the garage."

"You couldn't have waited for me to call you back?"

"So you were avoiding me?"

"I didn't even know that you called."

"I've left you at least half as many messages, Bella! You can't tell me that you didn't get them!"

I blinked at him. I hadn't even bothered to check my answering machine to see who might've called. I'd been so wrapped up in spending as much time as possible over at Edward's while I could that little things like returning phone calls I might've missed didn't occur to me.

Until now, of course, when it was too late to do anything about it.

"I've been busy," I finally ground out, clenching my jaw together.

He studied me carefully, his jaw twitching as he clenched his teeth together before he stiffly nodded once, as if accepting my excuse.

"I see _he's_ still here. Spending all your time with him, are you?" he sneered, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder at Edward's dark house.

"None of your concern anymore, Jake. I'll open the garage door," I said evenly, squaring my shoulders and standing up straight. "You can go in through there."

"Just let me in through here, Bella." He rolled his eyes, pushing on the door. "There are only a few more things that I need."

"Go through the garage, Jake," I said through my teeth, pushing back against the door. "I'll open the damn door."

"He's here, isn't he?" he asked, his eyes widening and his jaw going a little slack. "You have him here."

"None. Of your. Damn. Concern," I ground out, my eyes all but slits at this point. "You gave up the right to know anything personal about me."

"Didn't take you very fucking long to move on to him, did it? I was right, wasn't I? You weren't just talking to him, either, were you? You were probably in a relationship with him the whole damn time, weren't you?"

"I never cheated on you, you asshole. I never would've done that to you."

"Well it sure as hell didn't take you long to get over me, did it?"

"If you hadn't been such an asshole, maybe it would've taken me a little longer!"

"So you _are_ with him!"

"What does it fucking matter?" I yelled, throwing my free arm out to my side. "_You're_ the one that left _me_!"

"For this exact fucking reason, Bella!" He stood on his toes, looking over my head and into the house. "Hey Cullen! You know that thing she does with her tongue? _I_ taught her that!"

My eyes widened and I pushed on his chest, only mildly satisfied when he stumbled back a few steps onto the porch.

"What the hell is _wrong_ with you?" I shouted before I tried slamming the door.

His hands were there, one slapping against the wood and his other one just below my neck as he pushed his way into the house, forcing me backward into the living room.

I panicked, suddenly having to gasp for air as Jake stared down at me, his eyes hard and narrowed and his fingertips twitching against my skin.

He'd never hit me before, but I wouldn't put it passed him to start now. I'd never seen the crazed, almost manic look that was currently shining in his eyes before and he had _never_ been this aggressive with me.

Before I could really comprehend what had happened, Jake was across the room, knocking over my lonely lamp and I was safely tucked into Edward's arms.

I quickly wrapped my arms around his waist, burying my head into his chest as I sucked in deep gulps of air, closing my eyes tightly as I fisted my hands into the back of his shirt.

I don't know where he came from, but I didn't care. He was holding me and I felt safe again.

"Do _not_ touch her," his voice was quiet and smooth, the hint of menace and threat lying just underneath. "This is _her_ home; you no longer live here."

"I suppose _you_ do," Jake's seethed, panting as I heard him scramble up to his feet.

"As Bella said before, that's none of your concern. She said she'd open the garage door for you to get your things and leave. There's nothing else you need here."

"What do you know? You know nothing about her, Cullen, and she's not worth your time. Do yourself a favor and leave her while you can."

My arms tightened around his waist at the same time that his tightened around my shoulders and I buried my nose into his chest.

I couldn't think about anything like that right now – having my ex-boyfriend telling my current boyfriend to leave me when I could still feel his hard, unforgiving hand on my chest was just _not_ something I felt I could deal with right now.

What I _could_ deal with, however, was getting Jake the hell out of my house so that I could try and salvage what might've been left of our night.

"Get your shit," I growled, raising my head to glare at Jake. "Get your shit and get out of my life."

"Do _not_," Edward started as Jake's mouth opened again, "say anything else to her unless you want to go through that window."

Edward simply nodded to the front windows Jake was standing in front of, keeping his eyes trained on Jake's and his arms tight around me.

I swallowed hard when Jake's eyes narrowed again, solely focused on Edward's as he curled and uncurled his hands into fists at his sides.

"You _will_ regret not leaving her on her ass while you can, Cullen; trust me on that."

With that, he stormed by us and I heard the door leading to the garage open and slam shut seconds before I heard the garage door start to rise.

And before I could even think to start breathing normally again, Edward's hands were on my face, on my throat and his fingertips gently running across the spot where Jake's hand had been on my skin.

"I'm fine," I said quietly, shaking his hands off of my throat before wrapping my arms tightly around his waist again and clinging to him.

"You may be," he breathed as he rested his head in the crook of my neck, "but I'm not."

I rubbed my hands up and down his back, still taking deep breaths as he held on to me.

"Thank you for…" I trailed off, huffing out a deep breath and looking up at him.

His hands immediately rested on my neck, his thumbs gently running over my throat as his eyes scanned my face for what I assumed was any sign of any kind of damage.

"…For coming to help," I finished, trying to offer him a slight smile.

He scoffed, rolling his eyes as he threaded his hands through my hair and ran them down my back, stopping at my waist.

"If you thought for one minute that I'd stand back and let him do that," he shook his head, leaning down to rest his forehead against mine and closing his eyes, "let him touch you like that and hurt you…"

He trailed off this time, slowly shaking his head. I reached up, my hands slightly shaky as I combed my fingers through his hair. I stepped forward as his arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me against him as he leaned down even further to rest his chin on my shoulder.

"I love you, Bella," he whispered into my ear, gently kissing the side of my neck before resting his chin on my shoulder again.

I untangled my hands from his hair, wrapping my arms around his neck and burying my face in his chest, breathing in deeply and telling myself that _this_ – Edward, me, here, now – was real. Everything I felt for him was more real and more solid and stronger than anything I'd ever felt in the entire three years while I was with Jake.

What we had was everything I'd ever dreamed of and I wasn't going to let someone like Jake bring us down and tear us apart.

"I love you, too," I whispered back, pressing a lingering kiss over his heart.

We stood that way for a few minutes more, wrapped up tightly together and listening carefully to hear anything that might've sounded out of the ordinary in the garage before I finally pulled back and told him that I needed to go out there.

It took me about twenty minutes to convince him that I really _did_ need to go out there to make sure that Jake wasn't hijacking the snow blower just for the hell of it and he only agreed to it if I left the door to the kitchen open so that he could hear anything and everything Jake wasn't supposed to say to me.

He was throwing tools, bike parts and other random things that I wasn't even aware were in there into the side bag of his motorcycle while I stood on top of the steps, my arms crossed protectively around me.

He glared at me the whole time, but didn't say anything more to me. It took him about an hour until everything he apparently needed was strapped safely to the back of his bike and he jumped on it, flipping me off as he roared out of the garage and disappeared down the road.

I didn't even care enough to wonder how he'd gotten there in the first place and quickly closed the garage door, turning to go back into the house and walking directly into Edward's arms.

He closed the door behind me, calming the shivering I hadn't realized I'd been doing as he ran his hands over my back in an attempt to warm me up.

"How about that laundry?" he asked softly into my ear when I had finally stopped shivering.

My lips twitched and it wasn't long after that that I'd burst into laughter, burying my face into his chest and wrapping my arms tightly around his waist.

The night had only partly turned out the way I'd wanted it to and I was sure that Edward hadn't been bargaining for this when he'd walked in the door with me tonight, but just that simple question made all the stress and worry and tension melt away and out of my body.

After all of that, it was still just the two of us. And we were still together; he still loved me and he still wanted to be with me and there was absolutely no better feeling in the world.


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**One thing I must say – whoever is recommending me on lion_lamb and the Rob boards over at IMDB is amazing. I adore you. Completely and full-heartedly fucking **_**adore**_** you. All of you; every single one of you are absolutely amazing for reviewing and the like. Even the ones that merely read and don't say anything are amazing. You're all just amazing – that's my word. That's what I think.**

**And **_**thank you**_** for getting me to over three hundred reviews! It blows my mind.**

**I'm sorry that this chapter has taken longer than the ones before but this is the worst block that I've had since I started. I could **_**not**_** make anything cooperate with me the way I wanted it to and it ended up taking a lot longer than expected. But I think I've got it now so hopefully it was worth the wait. It's mostly fluff this chapter, but I'm thinking (merely _thinking_; these two have minds of their own) that things will start to pick up in the next chapter, so please continue to be patient with me, okay?  
**

**Oh, and if you haven't seen them already, I've posted two different outtakes for a few chapters so go check those out if you want. I'll be adding more almost as soon as I delete them from the real chapters.**

**Enjoy!**

~*~

***Edward***

It was four-twelve in the morning and I hadn't been to sleep yet. The alarm would be going off in forty-eight minutes and I hadn't even closed my eyes for more than two minutes the entire night. Bella, however, was sleeping peacefully on my chest, our arms tightly wrapped around each other in much the same way that they had been for the majority of the night.

Mine kept getting tighter with each breathy _Edward_ that fell out of her mouth during the course of the night. And there had so far been at least sixteen of those.

Yes, I'd counted. For a while, it had kept my mind off of the other things that had happened tonight and were driving me over the edge.

It should've been enough to lull me into a peaceful, deep sleep. Hell, with the day I'd had, I should've been asleep as soon as my head hit the damn pillow. Between dragging my hyper sister to the airport, getting extremely turned on in a bookstore of all places, telling Bella how I really felt about her and then dealing with Jacob's dumb ass, I should've been asleep _hours_ ago.

But every time I closed my eyes, all I saw was his hand on her chest, her eyes wide with fear and those god-awful gasps that she'd been forcing into her lungs absolutely haunted me. It had taken a hell of a lot of willpower to merely shove him away from her and not continue to go after him like he deserved.

He'd put his hands on her with what looked like every intention to hurt her and I'd never wanted to kill someone else as much as I wanted to kill him in that moment.

And why, in God's name, he would ever want to hurt her in the first place blew my mind. So he wasn't getting what he wanted from her and she wasn't making things easy for him; she didn't have to anymore. They weren't together anymore and she had no obligations to help him out in any way any longer.

There was absolutely no reason to disrespect and hurt her like that while he was intruding in her home.

She shifted in her sleep, nuzzling her cheek into my chest and throwing one of her legs over mine. I leaned down and kissed the top of her head, gently stroking her back and constantly reminding myself that she was _okay_.

The woman I loved more than I thought humanly possible was in my arms, asleep, safe and perfectly okay.

The night had been going almost perfectly before Jacob had shown up, too. I'd finally told her how I felt and everything in my crazy world had fallen perfectly into place when she'd said that she was in love with me, too.

When I saw her get out of her truck that night with the wind whipping her hair all around her, the snapping sensation I'd become so accustomed to feeling upon seeing her had been loud, echoing throughout my entire body and welcoming – completely shutting out all my fears and confirming what I already knew.

I was in love with Bella Swan and I didn't want to wait to tell her any longer. She deserved to know how I felt about her as much as I deserved to know whether or not she felt the same way.

Alice could spout on about how right she was about our emotions all she wanted, but nothing was for sure until I heard the words out of Bella's mouth.

I had been terrified when she didn't say anything back for a good minute and a half. She hadn't moved, she hadn't said anything since I had and it felt like my heart was slowly being torn in two. Like it was a piece of paper and she had her fingers on the top of it, slowly pulling one part down and ripping it easily in half.

I'd opened myself up to her, said those three words that I'd never said to anyone else before and it wasn't going over the way it was supposed to.

So I started doubting myself, doubting what Alice had said, trying to remember if her confession to Alice in my kitchen a few mornings ago hadn't been just a dream and I tried to cover it up; anything to get her to _move_ again.

I didn't want to hear the rejection I could practically already feel at that point. In fact, I kind of wanted to take it back and pretend that it hadn't even happened in the first place.

But when she finally did tell me… I couldn't put into words the way I felt. Almost like I was flying, diving headfirst into an emotion that I'd never let myself feel before and it rivaled every other emotion I thought I'd had for anyone else.

It had only gotten better from there; the teasing and the playful jabs at my ego while I tickled her had only ended up in one of the best possible ways I could've ever even dreamed about.

Her shirt had been on the floor and she was absolutely fucking radiant. There had been no hesitation in her eyes and she hadn't tried covering herself like other girls had in the past; damn it, she was _comfortable_ with me. There was just something incredibly amazing in knowing that the one woman that meant more than anything to me was completely comfortable being half naked in front of me.

And then _he'd_ knocked on the door, successfully ruining anything that I was hoping to finish at some point during the night and really testing my self control while he was at it.

The night had taken a really sour turn the minute I heard his voice from the living room and I'd been quick to stand in the doorway leading into the living room. Leaving her alone when he began raising his voice was just not an option in my mind. And standing by while he put his hands on her was also completely out of the entire question.

While Bella had threatened to kill whoever might've been on the other side of the door as a half-hearted threat, I'd _really_ wanted to. I didn't want to spend the rest of the night in jail until I had to deal with a trial, but for Bella, I would've gladly done so.

_No one_ touches her like that.

So we'd spent the rest of the night doing our laundry after he finally left and I'd managed to rid myself of the rage that had been flowing through my veins. She even let me make the grilled cheese sandwiches we both decided we wanted for dinner and then we'd sat on the floor of her living room to watch television while the washer and dryer hummed away in the kitchen.

It would've been relatively normal if not for the fact that I still couldn't get the image of Jacob's hands on her or the way he'd looked when he shoved her back into the house out of my head.

"I love you, Edward," she whispered before snorting slightly and winding her arms even tighter around my waist.

My heart jumped and I slowly turned on my side, pulling her completely against me and holding her tightly as I buried my face into her neck.

I would never get tired of hearing those words come out of her mouth. Every time she said it, my heart would beat a little faster and those steel cables that had attached me to her only seemed to get that much stronger.

By the time we'd walked across the street to my house with our clean laundry in our hands, there had already been at least two inches of snow on the ground and I was _really_ hoping that it would get bad enough that Bella wouldn't have to go to work.

I hadn't even been aware of a snow storm until Bella had said something about it over dinner. I didn't know how bad it was supposed to be or how long it was supposed to last. All I could hope for when she told me about it was that it would be bad enough to shut the entire damn town down for the day.

Yes, her vacation was coming up soon and I'd have her for an entire week, but I wanted this day with her. I wanted to make sure that she really was okay, despite the fact that I could clearly see that there were no marks on her. I needed just one extra day with her where I wouldn't have to spend the whole damn time wondering what she was thinking or how she was doing while I was away from her.

I didn't care that she was five minutes from home and that I could more than likely sit in one of those chairs for the entire day if I felt so inclined. I wanted her here with me, wrapped tightly in my arms for as long as she would allow it without any interruptions from anyone.

The alarm clock went off and I jumped, not realizing that I'd spent the past forty-eight minutes thinking some more about everything that had gone on in the past twenty-four hours and Bella sighed, her small hands rubbing up and down my back as she woke up.

"Off," she mumbled, yawning, "turn it off."

"I don't wanna move," I mumbled back, my voice gravelly as I merely tangled my hands in her hair.

"Turn it off and come back to me."

My heart sped up and I quickly untangled one hand from her hair, reaching behind me to slap at the damn clock and shut if off before I rolled back to her, my arms tight around her waist as I buried my head in her hair again.

She laughed sleepily and pressed herself against me, yawning again and nuzzling her cheek into my chest.

"Did it snow more?"

"I have no idea," I laughed, brushing hair away from her neck only to place my lips there.

"I want there to be more snow," she mumbled, one of her hands making their way into my hair and gently combing through it.

"Maybe we could make a snowman."

She snorted, her fingernails gently scraping down the back of my head as she worked one of her legs in between both of mine.

"I have to go to work."

"Nah," I mumbled, shaking my head and kissing my way up to her ear. "Stay home with me."

"I can in three more days."

"Too long."

She laughed, her breath catching in her throat as I sucked the bottom of her ear into my mouth.

"This is really not fair," she breathed, her hand curling into a fist in my hair.

I smiled smugly, flicking my tongue out against the bottom of her ear and tightening my arms around her when she whimpered softly.

"Stay," I whispered, kissing a line down from her ear and back onto her neck.

"I… I really can't." She sucked in a deep breath and I opened my mouth against her skin, making lazy circles with my tongue. "There's so much I need to do today."

I grunted, entirely too wrapped up in hearing her gasping for breath and whimpering quietly as I continued to suck on her skin.

"Edward, really," she breathed, her other hand coming up to rest on my stomach. "I shouldn't…"

I smiled, trailing my tongue back up to her ear and gently taking the bottom of it in between my teeth.

She was so close to giving in to me and I slowly started to pull up on the back of her shirt, listening as she sucked in another breath.

"I have so much… oh," she whimpered when my fingertips grazed her back, slowly running back and forth on her warm skin.

"Just today, Bella," I whispered, moving my mouth from her neck to trail it across her jaw.

"Why don't we," she started, moaning quietly as I dragged my teeth across her jaw, "see how much snow is outside?"

I hummed against her jaw, back to placing light kisses there as I continued to drag my fingertips lightly over her bare back.

"I'll make a deal with you," I whispered.

She hummed back in response, her body leaning into my hand. I smiled triumphantly, finally making my way to her mouth and barely brushing my lips against hers.

"If the snow is over the bottom two steps of my porch, you stay home."

"And if it's not?" she breathed out.

I smiled again, gently pecking her lips and pulling away.

"If it's not, you're more than welcome to go to work. Just know," I breathed as the hand she'd had on my stomach started to slowly trail down, "that I will be coming with you."

"Why are you so hell bent on keeping me in your sight today?"

This time, _my_ breath caught in my throat as she began playing with the waist band of my pajama pants.

I had _not_ been expecting _that_.

"I just… yesterday was… hard for me," I grunted, her fingertips barely grazing the skin of my hips. "I just want a little more time to…"

I sucked in a deep breath when she added her fingernails to her previously soft touches.

This was not how I'd imagined this conversation going _at all_.

"A little more time to what?" she whispered, pressing herself even closer to me.

Okay, when did the power shift from me to her? How had she gained the upper hand so damn quickly?

"To make sure that you're okay," I breathed, throwing my head back and letting my mouth hang open slightly.

Just a little lower and I wouldn't give a damn about anything anymore.

Instead, she stopped any and all movements and I groaned unhappily, slowly lifting my head again to look at her.

"What makes you think that I'm not?" she asked softly, her hand trailing back up my chest to rest over my heart.

The image of Jacob with his hand on her chest and that purely manic look on his face flashed in front of my eyes and I snapped my teeth together, nearly growling.

Everything that she'd been making me feel previously had suddenly disappeared, replaced with everything that I'd been working to get out of my brain since we'd gone to bed.

"He hurt you," I managed through my teeth, fisting my hand in her shirt.

"No, he didn't. He scared me," she clarified quickly when I opened my mouth to protest. "And you were there to make sure that he _didn't_ hurt me. Edward, I'm fine."

"Then give me today," I begged softly, gently rubbing her back. "Bella, I'm begging you for today."

She began to tap her fingertips over my heart, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth and looking directly into my eyes.

"You're not getting rid of me no matter what," I attempted to joke, swallowing thickly around the lump that was suddenly in my throat. "Either you stay here or I come with you."

"It really means that much to you?" she asked softly.

"_You_ really mean that much to me."

"Edward," she whispered, bringing her hand up to press it against my cheek.

"I _love you_, Bella," I whispered back, leaning into her hand. "And I need to know that you're okay."

She ran her thumb down the bridge of my nose and bit her bottom lip again.

"Edward, I'm fine."

"I'm not," I whispered. "I'm not fine with seeing that look on your face every time I close my eyes and I'm not fine hearing the way you were…"

"Okay," she interrupted softly, her thumb moving from my nose to trace my lips. "I'll stay home."

I relaxed, not realizing that I'd tensed up in the first place and placed my hand over hers.

"Thank you."

She traced my bottom lip with her thumb, smiling softly at me as I pressed my lips against it.

"I have to snow blow," she sighed.

"Show me how to use the damn thing. I'll do it," I said proudly, managing to puff out my chest.

She laughed and shook her head. "No."

My face fell and I pursed my lips.

"Why? I can do it!"

"You'll hurt yourself."

"Says the clumsiest woman in all of New York."

Her mouth dropped open and she slapped at my chest with her other hand. I laughed, wrapping my arms around her waist again and slowly rolling on top of her.

"You do enough for me as it is," I said quietly, gently kissing her as she pouted up at me. "Let me do this for you."

"You come here to _relax_," she sighed, exasperated as she rolled her eyes and placed her hands on my shoulders.

"Do you really think that I'm going to relax when I know that you're out there in the freezing cold pushing around a machine that's almost as big as you are?"

She sighed heavily, shaking her head and gently digging her fingernails into my shoulder blades.

"I've done it before."

"Yeah, but… well… I'm a man! I should know how to do these kinds of things!"

She laughed, throwing her head back into the pillow and I pursed my lips at her, drawing my eyebrows together and wondering what it was in that sentence that would make her laugh this much.

I moved one arm from her waist and quickly dug my fingertips into her sides, smiling triumphantly as she screamed, kicked her legs out and squirmed underneath me.

"No!" she laughed, feebly pushing on my chest. "Edward!"

"Teach me how to use it!"

"Fine!"

I stopped, smiling brightly at her as I rolled to the side. She caught her breath, placing both of her hands on her chest as she looked over at me.

"That's not fair, you know."

"It worked, though."

She rolled her eyes and gently slapped my chest, laughing as she shook her head.

"I'm going to go take a shower," she declared, sitting up and looking down at me.

Her shirt fell down her back and I sucked in a very deep breath when I got a quick glimpse of her champagne colored panties.

Ah, this woman was going to kill me one of these days.

"And then I'll make us breakfast." She leaned over and quickly kissed me before hopping out of the bed. "Stay away from the stove!"

I huffed as she walked out of the room, watching as her hips swayed back and forth until she was out of my sight.

I heard the bathroom door shut as she walked in and rolled into the warm spot she'd left behind. I rested my head on the mattress, listening as the hot water heater kicked on and wrapped my arms around the pillow Bella used each night.

I buried my head in it, smiling when the scent of her shampoo mixed with mine filled my nose.

She was okay. Bella was okay; she was in the shower right across the hall from me in one beautiful piece and would be making the both of us a gourmet-worthy meal when she was out.

She was in my home and she was staying with me for the day because I asked her to. I had her entirely to myself today.

Grinning to myself, my eyes closed without my permission and within seconds, I was finally asleep.

~*~

I woke up when I heard something that sounded like a lawnmower and moaned, reaching out and expecting to find Bella next to me.

When my hand landed on cold sheets, I quickly sat up straight and looked at the alarm clock. It was nearing one in the afternoon. My eyes widened and I groaned, attempted to crawl out of bed with a little bit of grace.

When the blankets had other plans and I landed on my shoulder on the floor, I merely turned over on my back and stared up at the ceiling, my chest heaving with the extra effort I exerted trying to untangle my legs from my bed sheets had caused.

The lawnmower was getting louder and I drew my eyebrows together as I kicked my legs out of the sheets.

Who the hell was using a _lawnmower_? Hadn't it just snowed? What grass could possibly be visible underneath what I was sure was at least six inches of snow?

My eyes widened again as I let my legs fall to the floor and jumped up, cursing as I slipped on a discarded sock and only managed to land myself back on the floor.

"Fucking hell," I mumbled, slowly pushing myself off the floor and glaring at the offending sock.

I kicked it out of my way before carefully walking out of my room and down the stairs, sliding my boots haphazardly on my feet and running towards the door, grabbing my coat on my way out.

A burst of cold air hit me and I shivered, cursing again as I zipped up the coat and walked out onto the porch.

At least it had stopped snowing.

I probably should've gotten dressed before I took off on a mad dash for the front door. It would've made a hell of a lot more sense than standing out here in my very thin pajama pants.

I jumped when I was assaulted with a stream of snow coming from – not a lawnmower – the snow blower and my shoulders fell as I let the thankfully light snow shower down over me.

Maybe I should've stayed in bed. I'd still be warm, dry and my shoulder wouldn't be screaming painfully at me if I hadn't moved.

Shouldn't have let her get up, either. I didn't like waking up alone now that I knew how it felt to wake up with Bella at my side.

Bella was blissfully unaware of my presence as she continued on, maneuvering the damn machine around my porch stairs and carefully making a path by the Volvo.

Shaking snow out of my face and hair, I wrapped my arms around myself and looked across the street to see that the garage door to her house was open and her driveway was cleared. My own driveway was almost completely cleared, leading me to believe that she'd been at this for quite a while.

The whole point of showing me how to work that damn thing was so that she wouldn't have to. This was too much work for her to do by herself; I didn't even want to think about how many times she'd fallen or almost tripped. The possibilities – and the fear that came with those possibilities – were endless.

I pursed my lips, eyeing her as she turned the snow blower back in my direction and felt a little bit better when she jumped upon seeing me. She let go of the handlebar she was holding on to and the damn thing thankfully shut off.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" I demanded.

She placed a gloved hand over her mouth before walking out from behind the machine and slowly making her way over to me. She walked up the porch steps and I could see that she was fighting a smile behind her hand.

I don't know what the hell she was finding so damn amusing right at the moment.

"Did I do this?" she asked, her voice strained as she began brushing snow off of my coat with her free hand.

"Yes, but that's not the point."

She dropped her other hand and braced her hands on her knees as she started laughing hysterically.

"I'm glad you find this amusing," I said dryly, looking down at myself to see that my previously dark blue jacket was now mostly white.

"I'm sorry," she squeaked, raising one hand to place it on my chest.

She only laughed harder when more snow fell off of me and I shook my head, my own lips twitching with the effort not to laugh at her.

If it had happened to anyone but me, I probably would've been laughing just as hard as she was. But since I was the one covered in snow and it had managed to leak down my neck and onto my bare back, the only thing that was really amusing me now was how hard Bella was laughing.

No matter what the circumstances, it was always nice to hear and see her laughing like this. She didn't do it nearly often enough.

"You… you were sleeping," she wheezed, standing up straight and pressing her lips together to keep from laughing a little more at me. "I wanted you to sleep."

"And I wanted to help you with this."

"I told you that it wasn't a big deal."

"It's a big deal to me." I reached out and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her against me and wrapping my arms around her shoulders. "I want to help you."

I felt her body jerk a little with the effort not to laugh at me some more as she brushed more snow off of my jacket before placing her head on my chest and I rolled my eyes.

"And I know that you didn't sleep." My eyes widened and I backed away from her to find that she was looking up at me with one eyebrow raised. "I could see those dark circles from space, Edward. You needed to get some sleep."

"I could've slept tonight. I got you to stay home," I whispered, leaning down and kissing her quickly. "And I wanted to spend the day with you, helping you."

"Okay, listen," she started, reaching up and cupping my face in her hands. "You took care of me when I twisted my ankle. I was only doing the same for you."

I sighed heavily and pursed my lips, looking back down at her. She smiled brightly and dropped her hands from my face to place them on my chest.

I was very impressed when she didn't start laughing at the avalanche she caused from the snow falling off my shoulders.

"Fine," I grumbled. "Thank you for taking care of me."

"You're welcome!" she chirped, standing up on her toes and quickly pressing her lips against mine. "I'm almost done."

"Is there anything you'll let me do?"

"You can shovel out your car if you want," she suggested, lifting one shoulder and smiling brightly at me.

"I can do that." I nodded and kissed her again before letting her go. "You have a shovel, right?"

"It's over in the garage. I didn't have enough hands to bring it over with me."

"Another reason why you should've woken me up."

"Get over it, Edward."

I huffed, reaching out as I passed her and gently smacking her ass before I walked across the street. She jumped, squealing slightly and I smirked to myself.

I turned around when I felt something hit my back to find that she was standing in the middle of my driveway, triumphant as she held up a semi-round snowball.

"Was that really necessary?" I called out, standing just on the edge of her driveway.

"Yes!" she laughed, nodding as she threw the second one at me.

I ducked, raising my arms over my head in victory when it sailed over my head.

"Ha!"

"You just wait!" she threatened, laughing as she walked back to the snow blower.

"Bring it!"

She stuck her tongue out at me before she pulled a cord on the side of the snow blower and it roared to life again. I smiled at her, shaking my head as I turned back around and started back to the garage.

I was almost there, only a few feet left before I stepped into the garage when I found myself staring up at the sky and my back flat on the ground. Great, now my head hurt, too.

I moaned, reaching up to cover my face with my arms as I cursed into them, listening as the snow blower abruptly shut off.

I should've stayed in bed. I should've held onto Bella as tightly as I could've and demanded that we both stay in bed for the rest of the day. I wouldn't be staring up at the sky in Bella's driveway if we hadn't moved out of bed.

"Edward? Are you all right?" she asked, her voice risen in what sounded like panic and I merely closed my eyes.

"I'm fine," I grumbled, waving one hand over my head at her.

I looked up when I heard her sit next to me and her hands were on my face, her gloves gone as she quickly ran her fingertips over every available inch of my face.

"Can you move?"

"I can move just fine," I sighed, dropping my arms to my chest and looking up at her. "This hasn't been a very good day so far."

She pressed her lips together and I watched as the corners of them started to lift into yet another smile.

"I'm not finding this funny!" I exclaimed, pointing at her.

"I'm sorry," she squeaked, moving one hand from my face to cover her mouth again. "I know it's not."

"And yet you're still laughing."

With that, a burst of wild laughter erupted out of her chest and she leaned forward to rest her head against my stomach, her body shaking as she snorted and hiccupped against my jacket.

Sighing heavily and smirking despite how horrible this day had been so far, I rested one hand on her back and folded my other arm over my eyes again.

"You're," she started, rasping as she looked up at me again, "you're spending too much time with me!"

I moved my arm, letting it fall into the snow beside me as I raised an eyebrow at her again.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm the clumsy one," she squeaked, tears streaming down her cheeks as she held in more laughter, "and you're spending way too much time with me."

"I haven't even told you how I fell out of bed yet."

That started her laughing again and I sighed, not being able to stop the small chuckle that escaped my lips as I began rubbing her back.

"You fell?" she squeaked again, looking up at me from underneath her eyelashes.

I nodded, pressing my lips together and sighing heavily.

"And then I slipped on a sock."

She buried her face back into my jacket, the laughter even louder than I ever thought possible.

"A sock?"

"Yes," I sighed, reaching behind me with my free hand to feel the bump on the back of my head.

Oh that was going to be a bitch later.

"Aw, poor baby," she cooed, her face suddenly directly over mine and her lips pouted down at me.

"I'm glad that you can find this amusing!" I exclaimed, slowly letting my head drop back down to the snow-covered pavement.

"Just know that if you'd been seriously hurt, I wouldn't be laughing," she offered, shrugging her shoulders and bracing her hands on each side of my head.

"Good to know, I suppose," I drawled. "Are you going to let me up?"

"In a minute," she said brightly before dipping her head down and gently pressing her lips against my throat.

My breath caught in my throat and I somehow managed to tip my head back even further, completely ignoring the shooting pain that was sent down my spine when I ended up stopping on the bump I'd found about a second ago.

"I'm sorry you're having such a crappy day," she whispered as she moved from my throat to my neck.

I grunted in response, reaching up to tangle my hands in her hair as I rolled my head to the side to give her a little more room.

"'S getting better," I mumbled.

She nipped at the space below my ear and I believe I even whimpered. I closed my eyes tightly, biting my bottom lip as she moved to the base of my jaw, her tongue joining the trail her mouth was making.

"Anything I can do to make it better?"

"I think you're doing it," my voice came out in a breathy squeak and I cleared my throat.

"Hm," she mumbled, moving to my cheek and placing gentle kisses all around it before I turned my head back to her.

She continued to kiss the rest of my face and I smiled, completely content with lying in the freezing cold snow with a raging headache, a shoulder that was still demanding my undivided attention and a very, _very_ cold ass.

"I love you," she whispered before finally placing her lips on mine.

The rest of the world melted away at those words and I moved my hands from her hair, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and pulling her down to me, not thinking as I tried to roll us over.

I groaned, wincing as I backed away from her and fell onto my back again, breathing heavily and reaching up to rub my shoulder.

"Go back inside," she said softly, sitting up and stroking my cheek gently. "I'll finish what little I have left and then I'll be in."

"You're doing too much," I gasped out, wincing again when I dug my fingertips into my shoulder a little too hard.

"Says the man gasping for breath on my driveway."

I narrowed my eyes at her and she laughed, leaning down and kissing me again.

"Just getting you back for this morning," she said brightly, her lips on mine again before she completely backed away from me and stood up.

"You're not supposed to mock the injured."

"It's different when I'm in love with the injured."

I smiled up at her, reaching up with one hand to tangle my hand with hers.

"I love you, too, you know."

"Yeah," she laughed, squeezing my fingers and gently tugging on my arm. "I know."

I grinned up at her this time before taking my hand from hers and anchoring myself on the driveway, pushing myself up without putting too much force against my other shoulder.

"I'll take your advice this time," I started as I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and walked across the street with her, "but the next time that it snows I'm doing all the dirty work."

She laughed, both of her arms winding around my waist and nodding.

"Okay, fine. Now would you just go inside and relax?" she asked, all but pushing me up the porch stairs. "I'll be in soon."

"You better be," I warned playfully, narrowing my eyes at her as I walked sideways toward the front door.

"Edward, watch—"

I ran into the side of the house and bounced back from it, moaning unhappily as I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

At this point, I was never leaving my bed ever again.

"Are you okay?" she squeaked from behind me.

"I'm fine," I managed through my teeth, hissing in another deep breath as I opened my eyes again.

I heard her start to laugh again and quickly turned to face her, one of my eyebrows raised and she quickly covered her mouth with both of her hands this time.

"I can't help it!" she squeaked, holding her hands up at the sides of her face and pressing her lips into a tight line. "You've never been this clumsy before!"

I sidestepped her, keeping my eyes on her as I slowly walked over to the rather large snow mound residing on my porch.

"Edward," she warned, still laughing as she held her hands out in front of her. "You don't want to do that."

I scooped up two handfuls of snow and began packing them together, wincing slightly as the motions irritated my shoulder.

"Yes, I really think that I do," I nodded, rounding out the snow in my hand.

"You'd laugh at me!" she bargained, slowly backing down the stairs.

"Yes, but I'd also wait until I was out of your sight."

"You're such a liar!" she exclaimed, slowly walking toward one of the many piles of snow she'd blown out of the way. "You'd laugh at me until you couldn't _breathe_ anymore!"

"That's pushing it, love," I said conversationally as I slowly started to walk across the porch and down the steps. "I'd always make sure that you were okay first."

"I made sure!" she screeched, quickly turning to grab up a handful of snow and pack it into a ball as I approached.

"Well, then there's the little matter of you refusing my help."

"I didn't refuse! You needed your sleep!"

"Could've lived without it," I said easily, shrugging my good shoulder as I stopped about ten feet from her. "You, however, could've killed yourself out here."

Her mouth dropped open and she lobbed the snowball at me, completely off target and only managing to hit the car as I stood in front of it.

"You _do_ know that if there is any damage to that car, you're paying for it right?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"You have more money than I do, Mister Cullen," she stated, squaring her shoulders briefly before turning to grab up another handful of snow.

I twisted my lips to the side and threw the snowball at her, laughing as it hit her squarely in the back and she screamed in surprise, turning around quickly to throw the one she'd just constructed at me.

It hit me in the chest and I leaped at her, ignoring the shooting pain my shoulder sent down my arm and grabbing her around the waist to fall into the snow pile she was standing next to.

"Okay, this is not fair," she pouted, trying to wiggle out of my grasp. "You're stronger than I am!"

"Even injured I'm stronger than you. That's pretty bad, Bella."

Her mouth dropped open as she stared at me before her lips curled up into a smile and she rolled on top of me, her mouth firmly attached to my neck before I had any real time to react.

My hands immediately went to her waist underneath her jacket, trailing underneath her shirt and I smiled briefly when she shivered at my cold touch.

"If you go inside right now," she whispered into my ear, nipping at the bottom of it and causing me to shiver this time, "I'll be in within twenty minutes with hot chocolate and," she continued, finding her way to my throat and licking slow, lazy circles to my other ear, "I'll even massage your shoulder for you."

I whimpered again, swallowing hard as she started placing soft kisses up and down the length of my neck.

"Okay," I breathed, nodding quickly.

If she asked me to go jump off the bridge right down the road, I'd probably do that, too. Hell, she had me exactly where she wanted me and we both knew it.

I just couldn't find it in me to really care all that much at this point.

"Watch where you're going this time, will you?"

"Funny," I grumbled, briefly digging my fingertips into her sides and smiling triumphantly as she squirmed around.

"Well, unless you want to end up in the emergency room for giving yourself a concussion, I think you should listen to me."

"You're damn lucky that I love you."

"I'm aware," she laughed, leaning back enough to kiss me before sitting up.

My hands fell out from underneath her shirt and jacket, landing on her thighs as I looked up at her.

"Go take a shower or something," she suggested, shrugging as she leaned over me and kissed me again. "I'll be done soon."

I nodded, letting her get up before I did the same, sighing as my shoulder twitched slightly.

"You're okay, right? I mean…"

I turned to look at her, standing behind the snow blower with her bottom lip in between her teeth and her hands resting on the handlebar. I smiled and walked over to her, cupping her cheek in one of my hands and gently leaning down to kiss her.

"I'm fine. Hurry up, okay?" I asked softly, brushing my lips across hers.

She nodded, stepping up on her toes to kiss me again before I turned from her and finally made it back into the house without falling and making an even bigger ass out of myself.

While I might've been taking on a few of her characteristics, I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. If that was what happened when I spent all of my time with her, I'd gladly take it. Plus, I'd have her undivided attention for the rest of the day and I really couldn't count that as a bad day in any kind of way.


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Ah, this chapter… *deep breath* Well, it came to me a hell of a lot easier than the last one did, so that's something to be excited about, I suppose. I have a sneaking suspicion that you're all going to enjoy it greatly. So... er... slight smut warning? :)  
**

**And a special shout out and tons of thanks to AngieL for once again listening to me and helping me out with this chapter. You are an amazing woman, my dear friend.**

**I'm on my knees, bowing down to you guys, praising you up one side and down the other because you are just that amazing. I could go on for days telling you how much I love all of you, but instead, I'll just post this chapter.**

**Enjoy!**

~*~

***Bella***

I walked into his house twenty minutes later with two hot chocolate packets in my coat pocket and a mesh bag of massage oils that Rosalie had gotten for me as a gag gift a few years ago.

Something about spicing up my apparently bland sex life.

Needless to say, I'd never used them – entirely too embarrassed to even _attempt_ explaining to Jake how that had even come up in conversation – and kept them stuffed in the very back of my bedside table drawer that he never dared to open.

Too many drinks and a nosy best friend did not mix well together _at all_.

I'd changed into a dry pair of jeans that hadn't been caked in snow for the duration of the morning and my worn-in sneakers. Something told me that he wouldn't appreciate me getting snow all over his carpet when I walked in.

I found Edward sitting on the couch in nothing but a pair of grey sweatpants, his eyes closed and his arm stretched across his chest as he held what I could only assume was an ice pack on his shoulder. I tilted my head sympathetically at him as I put the bag on the small table by the door and took off my coat.

He really hadn't had a very good day and while I did find a lot of it amusing, it didn't stop me from feeling really bad about all of it at the same time. Especially about the whole blowing snow into his face thing that I'd managed to do without realizing it.

I grabbed the bag again, toeing off my shoes and walking over to him to slowly put it down on the coffee table as I walked around it to stand in front of him.

"Falling asleep on me again, are you?" I asked softly, reaching out to run my fingers through his still wet hair.

He jumped a little, his eyes slowly opening as he tilted his head up to look at me.

"No," he yawned, shaking his head. "Just resting my eyes."

"Uh-huh," I smiled, "sure you were."

He smiled sleepily at me, reaching up and placing a hand on my hip.

"Get everything done?"

"Mostly. If you want to leave tomorrow, though, you'll have to shovel your car out on your own."

He shrugged his good shoulder, yawning again as he brushed his thumb against my stomach.

"That's fine. Thank you for doing all of that."

"You're welcome. Now, why don't you lie on your stomach so that I can give you that massage?"

"You don't have to…"

"No, I don't," I said easily, interrupting him as I gently ran my fingertips over the back of his head.

Oh good Christ, there was a bump the size of a baseball back there.

"But I want to."

He stared up at me before taking the ice pack from his shoulder and slowly moving around me to throw it on the coffee table. He froze, seeing the oils behind me before merely lifting his eyes back to mine.

"What's that?" he asked slowly.

I shrugged my shoulders, biting my lip nervously.

"Just something to help you relax. Don't worry about it."

"Uh…"

"Edward," I said sternly, sucking in a deep breath and gently grabbing his face in my hands. "Will you stop thinking so much and let me pamper you?"

If he stopped thinking about, _I'd_ be able to stop thinking about it and I'd be able to actually go through with this whole damn thing with a face that wasn't flaming red at every possible thought running through my head.

I didn't have any intention on trying to seduce him, no. But if that just so happened to be the outcome, well, I wasn't going to complain one damn bit about it.

"Pamper me?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

I rolled my eyes, sighing dramatically and running my thumbs over his temples.

"You're an _actor_; don't tell me that you've never been pampered, Edward."

He smirked lazily at me.

"I've never been pampered by _you_."

I smiled, leaning down to gently press my lips to his. Threading my fingers through his hair, I took a step forward as he wrapped his hands around my thighs, pulling me closer to him.

"So let me get to it," I whispered, backing away from him. "You deserve it."

"Are you sure?"

"If you don't want me to, tell me. I'll just go make us some hot chocolate and that'll be it." I did my best to keep the smile off my face when his eyes widened. "I'll keep my hands to myself. Wouldn't want to hurt your shoulder anymore or anything like that."

He quickly shook his head, his eyes returning to their normal size before he smiled lazily at me.

"Well, when you put it that way…"

I stepped back and he slid down the couch, hissing through his teeth as he slowly turned on his stomach.

"You okay?" I asked softly, lightly trailing my fingertips down his spine.

He sighed, nodding as he wrapped his arms carefully and slowly around the decorative pillow I hadn't paid attention to before.

It was amazing how many little details of his home that I hadn't even really bothered to look at. Family photos framed on the walls went completely unnoticed and throw pillows that I could've sworn I'd never seen before suddenly became very interesting to me when his arms were wrapped around them.

Shaking my head, I turned and opened the mesh bag, grabbing the first glass bottle I laid my hands on. I twisted the top off of it and set it on the table before climbing carefully onto his legs and straddling him.

"Tell me if you start losing feeling in your legs, okay?"

He snorted but mumbled some sort of acknowledgment, one of his hands appearing over the top of his head and waving at me before disappearing back underneath the pillow.

I shook my head and smiled, holding one hand out and tipping the bottle over slightly, watching as the liquid poured out into my palm. Figuring that I had enough, I set it back on the coffee table before holding my hands together in a sad attempt to warm it up.

"This will probably be cold," I said quietly, biting my bottom lip as I let my eyes wander freely over his bare back.

Perfect planes, glorious dips and pointed, defined shoulder blades greeted me and I sucked in a deep breath to steady myself.

It didn't matter how many times I'd seen him shirtless or felt him underneath my hands, it had the same damn effect on me each time.

Shaking my head in an attempt to clear it, I brought my hands to his back and slowly started to move them up and down. He moaned quietly and I bit down hard on my bottom lip as I continued to rub his back.

_That_ was not helping the situation I'd managed to find myself trapped in right at the moment.

I slowly moved up to his shoulders, carefully rubbing the one he'd fallen on with both of my hands and using my thumbs to make small circles there.

"Oh, God," he moaned and I bit down even harder on my lip. "That feels so good, Bella."

"That was the idea," I managed, swallowing hard as I kept one hand on that shoulder and moved the other hand to his other shoulder. "Does it hurt?"

"No," he moaned, shaking his head.

That wasn't helping, either. How many times had I dreamed of those sounds coming from him in response to something I did? How many times had I been forced to take an incredibly cold shower in the morning after waking up from one of those dreams?

And now they were very much real, making it very hard to concentrate on damn near anything that I was trying to do.

I moved my hands down again, making small circles with my thumbs as I did so and stopped at the small of his back. I turned my hands out, my fingers now on his sides while my thumbs were still making slow circles on his back.

I made my way back up, my eyes closed tightly and my bottom lip back in my mouth as he moaned again and shifted slightly underneath me.

I couldn't look at the way his back shined from the dismal amount of light coming in through the window anymore. I couldn't watch him bury his head into the pillow anymore. I couldn't watch the way his muscles tensed and relaxed underneath my touch anymore.

Feeling most of that was bad enough; seeing it was only making what I now considered one of the worst decisions I'd ever made even worse.

Not that I didn't enjoy having my hands on him for any possible reason, but having my hands on him for what was supposed to be a purely selfless act and reacting the way that I currently was just wasn't balancing out the way I'd originally thought it would.

I opened one eye long enough to make sure that I was on his injured shoulder before snapping it shut again, lightening my touch and gently rubbing my palm over the spot that hurt him most.

He moaned again and I pressed my lips together as I started to rub the back of his neck. I felt a shiver run through his body and had to bite back a moan of my own as I ran my hands down his back again, gently kneading my fingers into his skin.

He was enjoying this. He liked this. He _needed_ this. If I kept telling myself that, maybe I'd be able to get through this with a little of my sanity intact at the very least. I was doing this for _him_ because he'd had a really crappy start to his day and needed to relax.

None of this was supposed to be about _me_.

He moaned when I leaned down a little harder on my hands, pushing up and I nearly whimpered, fighting the urge to lean down and press my lips against his spine.

Or his shoulders. Or the small of his back. Hell, on every damn inch of him at this point.

"Bella," he moaned and I felt his hips thrust down into the couch cushions.

My eyebrows shot up and my eyes snapped open, my hands still working up and down his back as I stared at the back of his head.

Okay, so maybe I _wasn't_ the only one that was getting extremely turned on by this whole thing.

I sat up a little straighter and smiled brightly, proud of myself as I slowly moved my hands to the center of his back, leaning down to softly kiss his spine. I continued to move my hands up as I kissed my way up, gently grabbing his shoulders as I made it to his neck.

His breathing was choppy and short and I saw that his fingertips were digging into the edge of the pillow out of the corner of my eye. I smiled again, my hands still at his shoulders as I moved my lips back down and across, making my way to the bottom of his right shoulder blade.

"How's your shoulder feeling?" I asked softly, moving up to kiss the back of his neck again.

"You have no idea," he breathed out, turning his head to the side.

I moved my hands up, rubbing the backs of his tensed forearms and heard him moan again. I kissed my way across his shoulder and down his left side, letting my hands trail down his sides again.

I reached around him slightly, my fingers barely grazing his chest as I rubbed my thumbs over his back. I listened as his breath hitched and smiled triumphantly to myself as I kissed the small of his back.

"Get up," he rasped out, causing me to completely freeze.

Blinking, I leaned up and slowly climbed off of him, pretty damn hurt. I turned my back on him, leaning down to grab the bottle of oil and its top, concentrating very hard on screwing it back on.

I guess the triumphant smile was a little too premature. I thought he was enjoying it, that maybe…

I snapped my eyes shut, shaking my head sharply once as I fought with the top a little more.

I couldn't even work a simple bottle top; what in _hell_ made me think that I could successfully seduce my own boyfriend?

"Bella…"

I froze again when I felt his hand on my back, the top of the bottle only half screwed on and my fingers tightly squeezing it.

I didn't want to turn around and listen to him tell me that he didn't want me that way. There was a lot that I could listen to him say with absolute contentment, but this was the absolute _one thing_ that I wouldn't be able to hear from him.

"Bella, come back to me," he whispered, his fingers curling into the back of my shirt.

My heart skipped a few beats and I spun around to find that he'd turned over onto his back and was looking up at me, confused.

"What did you… you don't think that I want you to leave, do you?"

I uncomfortably shrugged one shoulder, fidgeting with the bottle in my hand as I bit my very sore bottom lip and looked down at my feet.

"Bella, no," he said softly, swinging his legs over the edge of the couch and standing up to cup my face in his hands. "_God _no."

"I just thought that…" My face fell and I sighed heavily. "I don't know what I thought."

There was no way in hell I was going to tell him what I'd really been thinking. I was currently dwelling on the fact that he _didn't_ want me to leave; I wasn't going to ruin this moment anymore than I almost had.

"Well, stop thinking it." He leaned down to rest his forehead against mine. "And please, if you love me at all," he chuckled softly, "you will continue."

My eyes met his and he smirked, his thumbs running underneath my eyes gently and I slowly nodded.

"You need to lie back down," I said, my voice shaking a little as I swallowed hard.

He kissed me quickly, his lips hard against mine before he easily sat back down on the couch and leaned back, getting comfortable and resting his arms at his sides.

I took another deep breath in a sad attempt to steady myself and slowly climbed back on top of him, sitting directly on his hips. My eyes snapped to his and he smiled sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders.

"I can't help…"

"Don't," I said quickly, shaking my head. "It's… nice to know that I have this effect on you."

I shrugged one shoulder again, embarrassed, and I felt my cheeks heat up as I quickly flicked the top off the bottle and threw it in the direction of the coffee table.

It was a hell of a lot different when he was watching me. I could be bold and someone who wasn't scared of doing something wrong when he wasn't watching my every move.

He didn't say anything and merely lifted his hands, resting them on my knees as I poured the oil into the palm of my hand again.

"Your shoulder hurt anymore?" I asked quietly, leaning over to set the oil back on the coffee table.

He moaned softly, his hips shifting against mine once as his fingertips dug into my knees when I sat back.

I swallowed hard and sucked in a deep breath. Oh, this was not going to be easy.

"Not as much," he breathed, offering me a small smile as his hands relaxed.

"Good." I cupped my hands together, once again trying in vain to warm the oil. "Gonna be cold again."

He nodded and I nervously licked my lips, looking down at his abs before placing my hands there. He jumped a little before relaxing back into the couch and as I moved my hands up his chest, he moved his up my thighs.

I raised an eyebrow and looked up at him again, my hands still moving up his stomach slowly.

"What?" he asked innocently, smirking at me.

"This is about you," I said softly, kneading my fingers into his shoulders as I reached them.

"And do you think I wouldn't want to touch you at all?"

"That is not the point."

His hands stopped at the juncture of my thighs and I sucked in a deep breath as his thumb gently brushed down the seam of my jeans directly over my center.

"What is then?"

I held his gaze as I moved my hands back down his chest, not stopping as I slid down a little to sit on his thighs – his hands slid down to the middle of my thighs as I did so – and I slowly dragged my hands over the bulge I'd originally been sitting on.

His eyes snapped shut, his mouth fell open and a low moan sounded out of his throat.

"This is about you," I repeated, moving my hands back up and slowly running them over his abs.

I could watch him like this all day. I'd never actually _seen_ someone respond this way to me; I'd never had the chance to even try something like this.

And with Edward, it was all so much… more. It was real, he wasn't holding back – much – and it was because of _me_.

I'd never had this kind of a high before. It was like this was the first time I was actually experiencing anything with anyone and all the emotions surging through me only managed to bring back that small surge of triumph and confidence I'd had before he'd turned over.

I wanted to please him. I wanted to bring him past the point of no return; to see his eyes clenched together tightly and listen to his ragged breathing and throaty moans as I pushed him over the edge.

I wanted that for the both of us.

"I don't… Bella, it's not…" he breathed, his chest rising and falling unsteadily underneath my hands with each breath he took.

"Could you just shut up and enjoy this for me?" I whispered, sitting up on my knees and leaning over him.

"Oh, I am. But, Bella…"

"Shut up," I whispered again, forcefully pressing my lips against his as I rubbed my hands over his chest.

His hands immediately reached up to tangle in my hair as I opened my mouth over his, hungrily plunging my tongue inside when his lips parted as my hands made it down to the waistband of his sweatpants.

I rubbed my thumbs in circles underneath his belly button, my fingers slowly curling around the waistband as he moaned again.

His lips eagerly dragged over mine, his hands fisting in my hair as I moved my hands inside his pants and shifted enough to gently drag my fingernails over his upper thighs.

He broke away from me, throwing his head back into the pillow, gasping for air and I was quick to plant my lips on his neck, trailing open mouthed kisses up to his ear.

"Is this okay?" I whispered, echoing the words he'd used yesterday in my kitchen.

"Do you really need me to answer that?" he managed, shifting his hips into my hands.

"Just wanna make sure."

"'S perfectly okay."

I smiled, once again attaching my mouth to his neck as I moved my hands back up and grabbed onto the waistband of his boxers. I heard his sharp intake of breath and if possible, smiled even wider as I slid my hands underneath the waistband and completely into his boxers.

My heart was hammering against my ribs, on its way into my throat as I lightly rested my hands on the sides of his hips and gently massaged there as well.

I'd done _this_ before; I knew how to do this. There was nothing wrong with anything that I'd ever done in the past and there would be nothing wrong with what I did now.

It was just the fact that it was _Edward_ that was gasping and panting underneath me that made all the difference. He was on a completely different level to me than Jake could've ever even _hoped_ to be and while that was a feeling that I'd never replace for anything, it was also something that scared the shit out of me.

"Bella, if you…" he started.

I squeezed my eyes tightly, gently nipping at his neck as I moved one of my hands and wrapped it around the base of him, the other still kneading his hip.

And the loud moan that I got in response to that was enough to send all of the fears I'd managed to create directly out of my head.

"Oh, God," he moaned, digging his head back into the pillow and dropping his hands from my hair.

I slowly moved my hand up the length of him, my thumb circling his tip before I dragged it back down. I pressed my lips to his throat as he moaned, kissing up to his chin as I moved my hand up again, slowly dragging it down and reveling in the way his breath was hissing out through his teeth.

I moved my other hand from his hip, moving it out of his pants and slowly tracing over his abs again as I started to stroke him a little faster. His hips started to move with me and I let out a small moan of my own.

He may be the one reaping all of the benefits at the moment, but knowing that I was doing this, that I was the one causing the sounds he was making was more than enough to spur me on.

"Bella," he panted, his hands reaching behind his head to dig into the pillow.

I kissed back down his throat, my free hand still dancing lightly over his abs. I kissed down to the dip in between his collarbones and swiped my tongue over it, reaching up to run my hand over his chest.

"Feeling okay?" I smiled, adding a little more pressure as I stroked my way back up.

He ground something out that I didn't understand and I grinned, leaning up and placing a quick, light kiss to his lips.

That apparently wasn't enough for him and he was quick to grab each side of my head in his hands, fusing his mouth to mine before I moved too far from him. He threaded his fingers through my hair, keeping my head in one place as his tongue quickly slid through my lips and dominated mine.

His hips continued to move with my hand, quickening his thrusts when I quickened my strokes.

He tore his lips from mine to throw his head back into the pillow again and the moan that ripped out of him had my stomach tangling into knots as I felt wetness pool in between my thighs.

I rested my forehead on his shoulder, catching my breath and letting out another small moan when I felt him twitching a little in my hand. His hips started moving faster and his hands reached up to rest on my shoulders, running down each arm until he reached my wrist of one hand and my forearm of the one that disappeared into his pants before he ran them back up again.

I moved my free hand over his chest, gently scraping my fingernails over his nipples before rubbing my palm over his abs again.

I loved his abs. There was no denying it and when I had him underneath me like this, it was almost fucking impossible not to admire them just a little more than I normally would.

I turned my head, matching the almost frantic pace his hips set with my hand, and shifted enough so that my mouth was right next to his ear.

"I love you," I whispered, gently kissing the space beneath his ear.

He moaned again, his hands tightening slightly on my shoulders as he turned his head toward me, his breath fanning out over my neck.

"I…" He paused and I heard him swallow. "I love you too."

I leaned up, easily capturing his lips with mine again and smiling as his mouth opened underneath mine to moan loudly.

It was something close to music to my ears.

"Bella, I'm… I'm…"

I tightened my hold around him again, grabbing onto his waist with my other hand and completely abandoning the pretense of the massage altogether.

It had flown out the window the minute I'd wrapped my hand around him. The only thing that even remotely resembled the massage we'd long since passed was the oil still lingering on my hands, currently aiding in every little moan, whimper and grunt that sounded between the two of us.

"Let go," I whispered into his ear before biting down on the bottom of it.

He groaned, his hips jerking a little higher into my hand than they had been as he stiffly shook his head once.

"Your… hand…"

If he thought that I was going to stop now for whatever reason his mind had currently somehow made up, he was sorely mistaken. I wanted this almost as much as he did and there was absolutely _no way_ that I was going to leave him partially unsatisfied.

"Will not mind," I finished for him, nipping my way down to his shoulder and looking up at him. "Let go, Edward."

With two more hard strokes and a lot more moaning from him, I felt every inch of him tense, watched as his mouth fell open and kept up my pace when his hips rose completely off of the couch. The long guttural moan that sounded out of his mouth as his fingertips dug into my shoulders had my eyes rolling back in my head and my bottom lip caught in between my teeth once again.

I felt the product of this abso-fucking-lutely gorgeous display I'd just witnessed slowly beginning to run down the backs of my fingers as I slowed the motions of my hand. A few seconds later, he fell back into the couch with one last moan and let up on the grip he had on my shoulders to reach up and fold his arms over the majority of his face.

I'd worry about that when he started breathing normally and I could actually concentrate on something other than the way he'd moaned my name and completely surrendered to me.

I anchored my free hand next to his chest, unwrapping my hand from him and pulling it out of his pants. Leaning up, I gently kissed his chin a few times.

"I'll be back," I whispered, kissing what was visible of his bottom lip before climbing off of him and walking up the stairs to the bathroom.

I washed my hands before splashing cold water on my face and leaned over the sink to take a few deep breaths and calm my racing heart. And when I finally looked up, I smiled brightly at my reflection in the mirror as I dried my hands on the towel hanging on the side bar next to me, tilting my head to the side and brushing my hair back behind my shoulders.

Yeah, I was pretty damn proud of myself. I had every reason to be really fucking proud of myself. And I was still riding on the high that I'd gotten upon seeing him completely open and vulnerable to me; it was a hell of a lot better than anything I'd ever dreamed of.

And while I could use a release as badly as he'd needed one, I just kept reminding myself that I was making the rest of this day all about him. He'd been the one to fall and run into things today; he'd helped me out numerous times when I'd done the same, so it was only right that I return the favor.

My own hormones would just have to wait.

I heard his footsteps on the stairs and glanced one more time at my reflection, dropping the towel and nearly jumping five feet in the air when I heard him pounding on the bathroom door.

"Bella? Bella, open the door," he demanded, his voice raised and gravelly.

My face fell, the high I'd had just a second ago immediately wearing off as I sucked my bottom lip back into my mouth.

Fearing that something had somehow managed to go horribly wrong in the ten seconds I was in the bathroom, I lunged for the doorknob and yanked the door open. He had one arm leaning against the doorjamb and his wide eyes immediately snapped to mine when I stepped into his line of sight.

"What? What's…?"

He pushed his way through the door, his hands cupping the back of my head as his mouth landed roughly on mine, completely cutting off anything I might've been trying to say. He pushed me up against the sink and I stood on my toes, my hands wrapping around his neck as his tongue demanded entrance into my mouth.

I met his tongue with mine, both eager and wrapping around each other as his hands trailed from my head and he leaned down without breaking the kiss to grab the backs of my thighs and lift me up. I quickly wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, pressing myself completely against him as his arms wound tightly around me. His hands splayed out on my back as he sidestepped and carefully pressed me against the wall next to the sink.

We stayed that way for a while, using the wall as a support while our mouths and tongues fused and tangled together, his hands eventually making their way up my shirt and roaming freely on my stomach.

"I love you," he finally breathed, pulling back from me to place small, light kisses against my lips, his chest heaving against mine. "I love you so damn much."

I grinned, kissing him again and unwrapping my arms from his neck to run them down his chest and rest my fingertips on his abs.

"I love you too." I reached up and brushed a piece of his completely unruly hair out of his face. "How do you feel?"

He grinned broadly, running his hands from my stomach, down my sides and across my hips before holding onto the backs of my thighs.

"I feel pretty damn good, actually."

I rolled my eyes and laughed, leaning forward and wrapping my arms tightly around his neck again, burying my face in his chest.

"I meant your shoulder and your head, but it's good to know that too."

He laughed and buried his chin in the crook of my neck, turning his head to gently kiss my temple.

"They're pretty damn good, too."

I smiled stupidly, laughing and leaned up to gently kiss him again.

"You hungry?" I asked softly, playing with the ends of his hair.

"Like you wouldn't believe," he laughed, hitching me up higher on his waist.

I laughed again and kissed him once more, sucking his top lip in between mine and gently nipping at it before backing away from him. He pouted at me, groaning and playfully narrowing his eyes at me. I smiled, framing his face with my hands and leaning in to rest my forehead against his.

"You need to put me down."

He grinned and shook his head. "No, I don't think that I'm going to."

"How else am I going to make us something to eat?" I laughed, gently dragging my thumbs over his cheeks.

"That could be tricky." He tipped his head from side to side before finally shrugging his shoulders. "We can make it work."

And with that, he'd turned us both around and was striding back down the stairs before I could protest. I held on tightly, squeezing my eyes shut and praying to all that was holy that he wouldn't trip or miss a step.

With the luck that he'd been having today, it was enough to make me nervous. I didn't even want to _think_ about how we'd get to the hospital if the both of us were severely injured.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt him step off of the stairs and onto solid ground, opening my eyes to see that we were easily gliding through the dining room and were almost into the kitchen.

"See? Not so bad after all, was it?" he asked brightly, noisily kissing my cheek as he stopped in the middle of the kitchen. "What were you planning on making?"

I just shook my head at him, laughing.

"You're something."

"Mm," he hummed, kissing me again. "You love me regardless."

"And you're very lucky that I do. What do you feel like eating?"

"Pancakes."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Seriously?"

He nodded, smiling brightly at me as he walked over to the freezer and nodded at it.

"Seriously. Mix is in there, if you'd get it. I seem to have my hands full."

"I told you to put me down," I said easily, shrugging as I opened the freezer door and grabbed the mix from the shelf. "I can't help it if you refuse to listen to me."

"I refuse to apologize for holding onto my beautiful and highly amazing girlfriend."

He kissed my neck and I bit my bottom lip, sucking a deep breath and swallowing hard.

"In fact," he continued, backing away and allowing my breathing to return to normal once again, "I don't think that I'm ever going to let you go."

And I was more than okay with that.

~*~

**So hopefully I don't need to go into hiding for this and it's at least **_**part**_** of what you all wanted. I agonized over it and changed a million things, so I hope it was a good start! Go easy on me, kay? *hides underneath computer desk again***


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Before I go on with my gushing and praising of all of you, there's something that I need to say.**

**I received a review for chapter four saying that a certain line in it was racist. I didn't see it before and I honestly didn't **_**ever**_** mean it that way so I'm apologizing. I'm sorry for not thinking and offending my readers. I was completely in the wrong and it has been removed. Once again, I'm **_**very, very**_** sorry and will take great pains to never make that mistake again.**

**Thank you all, as always, for always telling me what you think and I'm out of my mind happy that you all liked it! I don't write scenes like that often (if that wasn't painfully obvious before) so I was very nervous about it. But I'm glad to see that it went over so well! There'll be more – promise! Within the next few chapters, even.**

**And thanks a **_**ton**_** for getting me up to four hundred reviews. You guys are amazing.**

**Enjoy!**

~*~

***Edward***

I stared at the ceiling the next day, laying on my back on my now very beloved couch with my hands resting on my stomach and my ankles crossed over each other. The television was on but I hadn't been paying very much attention to it, instead thinking and impatiently waiting for the best part of my day to begin.

I had an hour and a half until Bella could come home. And then I had forty-nine and a half hours until I had her entirely to myself for an entire week.

She would be home with me, no interruptions and I would be able to return the favor she'd been so adamant on not letting me do yesterday.

She'd stubbornly insisted that the whole day was entirely about me. She'd said that I had had a rough day and was more in need of being pampered and pleasured than she did and would _not_ let me touch her for more than kissing and holding and innocent touches that had driven me almost insane.

I told her that. And she'd only laughed at me and danced out of my reach. The day had apparently been about what I wanted and needed.

Well, damn it, I had wanted to return the favor.

I honestly had no idea that it was going to turn into anything like that. I'd hoped – oh _God_, I'd started hoping the minute the word _massage_ left her mouth – that _something_ would come of it and when I saw that bag of oils she'd brought with her, I thought my heart had stopped.

And the minute she had her hands on me, rubbing my back and my shoulders, the response was immediate. Hell, it had merely taken her sitting on my thighs to have me at half-mast but when she'd added that oil…

And _then_ when she'd touched me, it was like Heaven. And I hadn't wanted to let go of her for the rest of the day. I needed her in my arms, I needed to touch her, I needed to be with her and god _damn it_, I _needed_ to return the favor.

But she wasn't having that. She'd said that I'd had a hard day and shouldn't think that she expected anything in return. She wanted to do that for me – _to_ me – to show me that despite how much she'd laughed at me while I was down, she loved me all the same.

It was maddeningly frustrating.

Especially when I really started to think about it because she hadn't had the easiest day, either. She'd spent most of the morning – while I was snoring away in my warm, comfortable bed upstairs – outside in the cold snow with a machine that still terrified me when I saw her behind it.

If anything, she deserved the pampering and massage much more than I really did. I'd just fallen a bunch of times while she'd actually done something physically challenging that couldn't have felt good at the end of the day.

And when she still wouldn't let me do anything while we were getting ready to go to sleep, I'd finally growled into her neck and had given up. She'd merely laughed softly, patted my cheek, kissed me once and then snuggled up against me before falling asleep.

As if it was that simple to actually forget about.

So I vowed, in the few still-conscious moments I had to myself before I fell asleep with her, that I'd find a day to make all about _her_ and she wouldn't be able to deny me anything that I wanted to do to her.

And there were _a lot_ of things that I wanted to do to her.

Tilting my head to the side, I pursed my lips up at the ceiling.

Maybe I could attempt to make her dinner tonight. Or maybe I could just order something in for the both of us. Or maybe I could go online and find a fool-proof, idiot-proof recipe that was easy enough for me to make for her.

She did too much for me. And after working the long hours she had this week, she deserved a night that was completely stress free.

I jumped off the couch, grinning as I flipped off the television and started to walk up the stairs to get my laptop.

I stopped when I heard footsteps on the porch and stood up straight, tilting my head again. Why was someone here? No one should be here; Bella had an hour and a half until she was out of work and I didn't know anyone else around here well enough to have them walking up to my front door.

I held my breath, waiting for someone to either start screaming for me on the other side of the door or to knock and then take off running.

The knock did sound through and I jumped, still holding my breath as I slowly made my way to the door, mashing my face against the peephole as I reached it.

Bella stood there, wringing her hands around her purse straps with her bottom lip caught in between her teeth.

I started breathing again, my eyebrows drawn together as I grabbed the doorknob.

And then I grinned, yanking open the door and fighting the urge to tackle her to the ground when I saw her.

She was home early. She was knocking for some reason that I didn't quite understand, but at least she was home early.

"Why are you knocking?" I asked, reaching out and grabbing her hand to pull her inside.

"Uh…" She laughed nervously and shrugged one of her shoulders, slowly setting her purse on the table and then shedding her coat as I closed the door behind her. "Just… habit?"

When she draped her coat over the back of the rocking chair, I was quick to wrap my arms around her and pull her against me, eagerly planting my mouth on hers.

When she failed to respond the way she normally did, I pulled away and grabbed her face in my hands to stare down at her.

"What's wrong?"

She shook her head, closing her eyes and biting her bottom lip before walking out of my arms and into the kitchen.

"I, uhm… Rosalie came by and wants me to go out with her and Angela tonight," she called over her shoulder.

I stared after her, my mouth slightly hanging open and my hands still in the air where they'd been cupping her face before I dropped them to my sides and slowly started to follow after her.

Not the way we usually greeted each other when she came home.

I didn't like this new way very much, either. In fact, I didn't like it at all.

"Okay," I said slowly, watching as she began pulling out a bag of frozen shrimp I hadn't been aware was in my freezer in the first place. "And that's what has you so jumpy?"

"Who's jumpy?" she laughed nervously again, shaking her head as she threw the bag onto the counter and grabbed a box of angel hair pasta from a bottom cabinet. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, okay." I walked over to her and grabbed her arm before she could retrieve the pot I'm sure was next on her list of distractions. "I'm not an idiot, Bella. You come home early, you're acting weird and you expect me to think that everything's just as fine as it was this morning?"

"Jessica came back early," she shrugged a shoulder and licked her lips. "That's why I'm home early."

"So you're telling me that you're on your vacation right now?"

I should've been excited about this. Instead, my heart had lodged itself in the pit of my stomach and I was beginning to feel slightly sick.

She very obviously wasn't happy about this and there were only about a million things running through my brain for reasons why.

"What day are you leaving, Edward? All you said to me was that you were leaving before Christmas but you never gave me a specific date."

I sucked in a sharp, deep breath and clenched my jaw, keeping my eyes trained on hers.

I hadn't told her. It never even really occurred to me to mention it; it was just something that we both knew was happening. Something that I'd come to resent and something that I didn't want to think about any more than I already had.

Why did we need it looming over our heads all the time when we were just able to be together without complications? Why did we even need to bring it up until it was absolutely necessary?

"The twenty-second," I finally said softly.

"Then no," she said calmly, nodding once. "My vacation doesn't start until Monday."

I sighed, quickly ramming a hand through my hair as I continued to look into her eyes in a very sad attempt at reading her mind.

"Bella, _what_ is wrong? You're… you're not… you!"

Her face softened and I could practically see her giving in, her entire body seeming to relax as she took a step forward and curled up against me, her head on my chest. I wrapped my arms around her, more confused than ever as I rested my cheek on the top of her head.

"It's just been a really rough day," she said softly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize." I closed my eyes, squeezing her tightly and slowly beginning to rock us from side to side. "Just tell me why."

"I'd really rather not talk about it right now. I just want to forget about it."

"Okay," I said slowly, rubbing her back. "Then can I ask why my departure date makes a difference with your vacation?"

"Jessica made it very damn clear today that she was only going to be working by herself for exactly one week. And if you're leaving on the twenty-second, then I need to work until Monday so that I can go with you to the airport."

I squeezed my eyes even tighter together and hissed in another deep breath.

"Bella, you don't need to do that."

"Yes, I do. I want every minute with you Edward, and that means saying goodbye to you at the airport."

A sharp pain erupted in my chest and I squeezed her even tighter, bending down to bury my nose in her neck.

That word; that one painfully simple word was enough to almost bring me to my knees.

"It's not goodbye," I choked out, shaking my head. "It's just…"

She cut me off, grabbing the sides of my face in her hands and forcefully pressing her lips to mine. I immediately responded to her, my mouth opening to hers and our tongues tangling together as I tried pulling her even closer to me.

I didn't even want to think about it. I still had time left to be here; to be with her and the last thing I wanted to do was think about leaving her.

I felt what I could only guess was a tear brush against my cheek and slowly pulled away from her. She was shaking her head, her eyes closed as she wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face in my chest.

"Bella," I whispered, brushing hair behind her ears and bending down to rest my chin on her shoulder. "Talk to me."

I had never been this terrified and worried about something someone else was thinking before. Bella wasn't the type to cry over nothing. And the fact that she wasn't telling me why was enough to make me even more paranoid than I usually was.

"I don't want you to go," she whispered, still shaking her head. "I know that you have to and that you need to, but I just…"

She shifted and I stood up straight, looking down at her and swallowing hard at the tears making their way down her cheeks.

"I don't want you to," she finished quietly, sniffling softly and reaching up to run her hands through my hair.

"Come with me," I blurted out.

She breathed out a laugh and shook her head, sucking in a deep breath through her nose as twin tears fell down her cheeks.

"You know that I can't go with you the same way I know that you can't stay here." She huffed out a breath and pressed her lips together. "I'm just gonna miss you so much."

I wiped away the tears on her cheeks, taking a deep breath and wrapping my arms around her again.

"I'm gonna miss you just as much," I whispered into her ear, kissing her temple. "But I'm gonna call you every damn day and we're going to make as many damn plans to see each other as we can. I love you too much not to."

She was quiet, sniffling slightly before backing away from me.

"Come with me tonight," she whispered, placing her hands on my chest and looking up at me. "Come out with us tonight. We'll figure something out to make sure that no one sees you, okay? I just…"

"I'll go," I interrupted quickly, shaking my head. "And I don't need a hat or a disguise or anything. I'm not hiding anymore."

She raised an eyebrow at me and I smiled softly, reaching up to wipe the remainder of the tears off of her cheeks.

"Let everyone in the damn world know that I'm with you," I whispered, leaning down to kiss her softly. "I don't care anymore, Bella."

"But, Edward…"

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you and I'm not leaving your side for the entire night. I want everyone to see me with you."

"But aren't you…?"

"I love you," I whispered, kissing her again. "And it's about time that everyone knows it."

"Not even the bandana? You could probably throw a lot of people off by just wearing that."

"I'm not wearing anything."

She immediately pressed her lips together and I watched as the corners of her mouth started to twist up before I realized what I'd said.

"I didn't really mean…" I started, shaking my head furiously.

"You'll get a lot more attention that way," she squeaked before leaning forward to bury her head in my chest again.

At least she wasn't crying anymore and I chuckled with her, my arms once again winding around her and holding her tightly against me.

"The only kind of attention I want from something like that is yours," I whispered into her ear, gently kissing the side of her neck.

"Well, you'd definitely have it." She looked up at me again, offering me a bright smile and I breathed a little easier, my heart settling back into my chest from its almost permanent residence in my stomach. "And I wouldn't let you out of the house anyway, so it's a moot point."

My stomach tightened and I nearly swallowed my tongue as I was assaulted with some pretty damn amazing images at her words.

"Hm," I managed, leaning down and kissing her again. "Do we really have to go out tonight?"

"According to Rosalie, I _need_ a night out."

She sighed before kissing me once more and backing away from me, bending down and grabbing a pot out of the cabinet.

So much for those images.

I leaned against the sink, crossing my arms over my chest and watching as she grabbed the bag of shrimp and ripped it open.

I didn't want to see that sad look back on her face or those tears in her eyes ever again, but not knowing what had gotten her so upset in the first place and not being able to fix it for her like I desperately wanted to was enough to drive me insane.

She was supposed to be able to talk to me and tell me about all of the things that were bothering her. That was one of the things I was here for; someone for her to talk to and let out all of her aggravation when she needed to.

"And you're still not going to tell me why, are you?"

"It's just…" She shook her head, waving a hand at me as she dumped the shrimp into the pot and set the empty bag next to her. "Work stuff."

And it was like the room got just that much brighter as I was finally able to piece it all together.

The proverbial light bulb had finally turned on.

I should've seen it before. I should've realized it long before now.

Shows how observant I really am.

Bella hadn't been this upset after a day of work since Jessica had left for her vacation. She'd been exhausted the whole past week, but she hadn't ever come home crying since the first night she'd stayed with me.

"It was Jessica, wasn't it?"

I watched her hands twitch on the handle of the pot as she grabbed it and walked over to me, gently nudging me out of the way to turn on the tap water and shove the pot underneath it.

"Bella," I said slowly, watching as her jaw tensed. "Bella, what did she do?"

"She didn't _do_ anything," she sighed quietly, flipping off the tap when the pot was half full. "And that was the problem."

"So you came home crying and demanding to know when I was leaving because she didn't do anything all day?"

She walked over to the stove and carefully set the pot on one of the burners, flipping the knob to turn it on.

"She knew," she said quietly before bending down to grab another pot and walk back over to the sink.

"She knew what?"

"She knew when you were leaving. And she had a magazine article to prove to me that you weren't actually dating me."

She looked over at me, quickly flipping the tap water on again and sticking the pot underneath the stream of water.

Again, the room got a little brighter with the realization of what she was talking about and I closed my eyes tightly, reaching up to rub my forehead with my fingertips.

Damn Jeannie and her crafty, completely justifiable ways.

"That was before we'd started dating, Bella," I said quietly, opening my eyes again to find that she was staring intently at the water. "It was the night you first kissed me."

She nodded, her eyes still trained on the water.

"It was about the day you got screamed at in Price Chopper, I know," she said softly. "It was an older article."

I was half tempted to start bashing my head against the wall. If she knew that it was old and that we hadn't started dating yet, then why had she come home so damn upset?

"But you never told me when you were leaving," she continued, her voice still soft. "You never gave me a day."

"I didn't want…"

"Jessica said that you were just going to up and leave me." Her voice was strained as she interrupted me and I swallowed hard, shaking my head. "That I'd wake up that morning and you'd just be gone."

"Bella…"

"I know you'd never do that," she said, her voice shaking and squeaking. "But just the way that she said it... Like she was so sure she was right…"

I reached over and slapped off the running water, pulling her back into my arms and holding her tightly, running my hands down her hair.

"And I'm sorry," she sobbed into my chest, her arms wrapping tightly around my waist. "I'm sorry for listening to her and for coming home like this but I… the thought of you leaving is hard enough and to have…"

"It's okay," I whispered into her ear, rocking us from side to side. "Bella, it's okay."

"No!" she wailed, shaking her head and clutching on to me. "It's not okay! It's not okay that I let her get into my head like that! That's the way she is and I know that! I know better!"

"Shh, Bella, calm down," I whispered again, cupping the back of her head in my hand and resting my cheek against her temple.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, burying her nose into my chest.

"There's nothing for you to be sorry about." I turned and kissed the side of her head, closing my eyes and tightening my grip around her. "I should've told you before this."

"I should've known better."

"Stop it," I whispered, shaking my head. "This is going to happen, Bella, and it's not going to get any better or any easier."

I squeezed my eyes together tightly, for one minute completely regretting letting my heart rule over my head and starting a relationship with her regardless of everything that she'd have to go through for me.

"But I know you," she whimpered, turning her head to rest her cheek on my chest. "And I know you wouldn't do that to me. I love you, Edward, and I'm sorry."

The regret immediately started to dissipate and I shook my head at myself. Maybe I shouldn't have let myself get tangled up with her this way, but there was nothing that I'd do to ever change it.

I'd never been this happy with anyone else before. There hadn't been anyone to make me feel like Bella had in the short amount of time that we'd been together.

She was going to end up being hurt and she'd have to deal with a hell of a lot more than Jessica when word finally spread that we were together. And the guilt that would undoubtedly flow through my body when I heard her on the phone like this and wasn't around to protect her or hold her to reassure her that things would be okay would eat at me until I could see her again.

I sucked in a deep breath and stood up a little straighter.

I wasn't giving up on us. I wasn't running away because Alice had been right… no matter how much that pained me to admit it.

_Any normal girl in this situation would have doubts._

Bella was a normal girl that I'd fallen in love with and it was my job to make sure that those doubts didn't pull us apart.

She was too important and meant too much to me to have something like this end up tearing us apart.

I wasn't going to lose her over something like this.

"There's this thing one of the other actors taught me on my very first movie," I said softly, running my hand down her hair again. "What is the one thing you can't look at without laughing?"

She sniffled and backed away slightly to look up at me, her eyebrow raised and her eyes red.

"What?"

"What's the one thing that you can't look at without laughing?" I asked again, shrugging my shoulders. "Humor me."

She sighed heavily and twisted her lips to the side, closing her eyes as she concentrated. I watched for a few seconds before her lips started to curl up into a smile and her eyes slowly opened again.

"Bananas."

Not what I'd been expecting…

"Bananas?" I asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow of my own.

Her smile widened as she nodded.

"My father tried making banana pudding for I don't know what reason." She giggled a little and I smirked at her, watching as she shook her head and continued, "And when he had to peel the bananas, the stem broke off of one and he didn't know how to get it out. So," she interrupted herself to giggle again, "he tried peeling it apart on his own. When that didn't work, he grabbed a butter knife instead."

"This can't be good," I mumbled.

She laughed and shook her head again.

"He's almost as clumsy as I am and for some odd reason that he still hasn't explained to me, the banana peel was wet and the knife slipped off. He almost chopped off his finger, but he was damned and determined that he was going to get this one banana out of its peel."

"Didn't he have others?"

"Yes. But he wanted this one."

"Sounds like someone else I know," I mumbled, leaning down to nudge my nose against her cheek.

"Hm," she mumbled, reaching up to place one hand on my cheek. "Anyway, he gave up on the knife, his finger bleeding all over the place, and grabbed the banana in both hands. He was really pissed off at that point," she laughed, her hand moving from my cheek to run through my hair.

I smiled, leaning my head into her hand and closing my eyes.

For the first time that night, her voice didn't sound sad and dejected. She didn't sound as if her heart was being ripped out and I could afford to relax a little, leaning into her and listening to her.

"When I came home from school approximately ten minutes later, I walked in to find that he'd squeezed the banana so hard that it had oozed out into his hands, onto the floor and when he'd tried cleaning it up after massive amounts of screaming at it, he'd somehow managed to slip on the mess. When I walked into the kitchen, he was laying on his back, still screaming at the ceiling that the banana had tried to kill him with his finger in the air and blood streaming down his hand."

I laughed, burying my face into her shoulder and shaking my head.

"I had to bring him to the emergency room to get his finger stitched together once he managed to get off the floor and clean up the blood but let me tell you," she laughed, her hand still in my hair as she turned her head so that her lips were resting on my jaw, "explaining how he'd done that with a straight face was _not_ an easy task."

I continued laughing, thinking that only someone related to Bella could end up in any kind of situation like that. Over a banana of all things.

"To this day, I can't even look at a banana without laughing hysterically at it."

She kissed my jaw, still laughing.

"So are you going to tell me what the whole point of me telling that story to you was?"

I stood up straight again, still laughing as I pressed my lips against her forehead and left a series of kisses there.

"Every time Jessica starts saying something that upsets you, just picture her as… well, as a banana."

The burst of laughter that erupted from her throat had me laughing again, my nose buried back into her shoulder as I rubbed my hands over her back and slowly started to sway back and forth with her.

"You can't keep a straight face or be mad at a banana."

"That's what you do?" she asked, pushing me away to look up at me.

I nodded, laughing as I pushed hair behind her ear again and leaned down to kiss her softly.

"That's what I do."

"And it works for you?"

"Every time," I grinned, kissing her again.

She laughed and wrapped her arms around my neck, swaying with me as she sighed out a deep breath and nodded.

"Okay. I'll picture her as a damn banana."

She snorted and I smiled, laughing quietly before turning to rest my cheek on her shoulder.

"Do that with everyone that says something that makes you feel like this. And if that doesn't work, come home and _talk_ to me about it. Don't hide from me," I whispered into her ear.

"I didn't want it to upset you."

"The only thing that upsets me is knowing that you're upset. It's not always going to be easy, Bella; you knew that. But I'm _here_," I whispered again, "and I'll always be here when you need me."

She nodded, her hands back in my hair and her fingernails gently running back and forth across the back of my head.

"I know and I know that I just need to toughen up a little more."

I felt her chest puff up against mine and smirked.

The worst was over; she'd calmed down and she was almost back to being the Bella that I loved and adored. Her breath was still hitching every once in a while and I'm sure that her eyes were still pretty red, but at least she was laughing and starting to joke around again.

"You're pretty perfect the way you are, you know," I mumbled, kissing the bottom of her ear.

She hummed and I smiled, taking the bottom of her ear into my mouth again.

"I guess you're not so bad, either."

I stopped and quickly stood up straight, looking down at her and narrowing my eyes.

"You _guess_?"

"No one's completely perfect," she shrugged, smiling innocently at me. "Especially the glamorous actor that has an ego two sizes too big."

"You _really_ like having me attack you, don't you?"

She shrugged one shoulder, stood on her toes to kiss me quickly and then pranced out of my arms and back to the stove.

"If you do that, we won't be eating and knowing Rosalie, we're going to need every little bit of food in our stomachs to soak up all of the alcohol she'll make us consume tonight."

My mouth watered, but it had nothing to do with the food that she was currently making. Maybe it would be worth it to have the wrath of Rosalie breathing down my neck if I could just get my hands on her…

A spool of fishing line flashed in front of my eyes and I shivered, shaking my head.

No. I quite liked having every part of me attached and unharmed.

"You have to work tomorrow," I stated, clearing my throat and crossing my arms over my chest, pouting at her.

She shrugged again, grabbing an over sized spoon from the drawer next to her and stirring the shrimp.

"That's never made a difference before."

"So we're aiming to get drunk?"

"Buzzed," she clarified, pointing the spoon at me.

"Hm."

She looked over at me again, one eyebrow raised as she set the spoon in the middle of the stove. Walking over to me again, she grabbed the half full pot still sitting in the sink before quickly kissing my cheek and walking back to the stove.

"You're sure that you want to go without a hat?" she asked as she set the pot on a burner and flipped the knob to turn it on.

Sure? No. Damn terrified? A little. Completely willing to show her that I didn't give a fuck what everyone else was going to say? Yes.

"Yes."

She continued to eye me as she grabbed up the box of pasta and ripped open the top.

"All right."

Yes, because _that_ sounded convincing. Now she was just making me nervous again.

"Are _you_ okay with it?"

"I want you to be sure. I don't want you to do anything that you don't want to do."

I rolled my eyes and walked over to her, standing behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist.

"How many more damn times are you going to make me tell you that I don't do anything I don't want to?"

"About a hundred."

I laughed, shaking my head and leaning down to rest my chin on her shoulder.

"Smart ass," I mumbled.

"Mhmm," she hummed back, grabbing a handful of pasta and breaking it in half over the empty pot in front of her.

I kissed the side of her neck, linking my hands together on her stomach and rubbing my thumbs over her ribs.

"Where are we going?"

"Saratoga," she said, sighing. "It's a Friday night and there are always a lot of people out." She craned her neck around to look back at me. "No hat?"

I took a deep breath and shook my head, kissing her quickly.

"No hat."

"If you start feeling really uncomfortable or change your mind…"

"What are you making?" I interrupted, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Edward, I mean it."

"So do I," I laughed, jerking my chin down at the pots on the stove. "What are you making?"

She pursed her lips at me, huffing slightly before turning back around and grabbing another handful of pasta.

"Fettuccini Alfredo with shrimp."

I rested my chin back on her shoulder, pulling her against me once she'd dropped the pasta into the pot and dragging her with me to the middle of the room.

"Can I ask what you are doing?" she asked, placing her hands on my wrists when I'd stopped moving backwards.

"I'm trying to tell you that I want to go with you. I want to be everywhere that you are for as long as I possibly can be. I want to be _me_ with you and if that means walking into the lion's den for the sake of feeling a little semblance of normalcy with my girlfriend, I'll do it." I kissed her neck, making my way up to her ear and smiling triumphantly when she tilted her head to the side. "I just want to be with you, Bella. It doesn't matter where it is or how many people are around as long as I'm there with you."

I reached up with one hand to push her hair off of the back of her neck, kissing a light trail up and down.

"Okay?"

"Mhmm," she whimpered.

"So for once today," I whispered, kissing my way back to her neck, "relax and just be with me, Bella."

"Okay," she whispered back, turning in my arms and looking up at me. "I can do that."

I wrapped my arms around her waist again, leaning down to kiss her softly.

"I love you."

She smiled and kissed me again, her hands moving up and weaving through my hair.

"I love you too."

I might've heard a knock on the front door, but chose to brush it off as I pulled Bella closer to me and kept her mouth firmly against mine.

_This_ was how we usually greeted each other when she came home from work. And I'd missed this today so whoever may or may not have been at the door could wait or leave because I had no intention of letting her go any time soon.

"Hello? You two can't hide from me forever!"

We jumped apart when a woman's voice sounded through the house and I immediately tensed, pulling Bella tightly against me.

Who in the hell had enough audacity to just stroll into my house? And if I didn't know this person, then yes, I think it was very possible to hide from her forever.

I could always move.

"Rosalie, for Christ's sake, you can't just barge into his house like that!"

"Oh, God," Bella moaned, shaking her head and leaning forward to bury her head in my chest. "I'm so sorry."

I relaxed and laughed nervously, swallowing the large bubble of panic that had welled up in my chest as I shook my head and released my death grip on her waist slightly.

"Edward, Bella, I'm sorry for just barging in like this, but we're wasting time!" Rosalie's now recognizable shriek sounded from the living room.

My God, she sounded just like Alice. It's no wonder that those two had gotten along so well while she was here.

"I'm buying a deadbolt," I muttered, kissing the top of her head before letting her go and sighing heavily.

"Probably wouldn't be a bad idea," she grumbled, running her hands through her hair and standing up straight. "Rose!"

I heard heels clicking on my dining room floor and shook my head, running my hands through my hair and offering a small smile to Bella's apologetic glance.

"It's okay," I whispered, leaning forward and gently kissing her forehead.

"I've been calling you and standing over at your house for almost fifteen minutes," Rosalie huffed as she appeared in the doorway, her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed at Bella. "The least you could've done was left me a note."

"Guys, I'm sorry! I couldn't stop her!" Angela's voice called from the living room. "She never listens to me!"

"It's okay!" I called out, shaking my head again.

Rosalie's eyes snapped over to me and she smiled brightly. "Hello, Edward."

"Hey, Rosalie," I mumbled. "How's it going?"

"It'll be a lot better when Bella finally lets me kill her associate," she grinned innocently, shrugging one shoulder.

"I'll help you bury the body," I decided, nodding and laughing at her.

Okay, so maybe she wasn't _that_ bad…

"And we have a plan!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands before placing them back on her hips.

"Guys," Bella sighed, shaking her head. "You can't kill her."

"Why not?" Angela asked, popping up behind Rosalie and peeking over her shoulder. "It's not like she actually does anything anyway." Then she smiled timidly at me, wiggling her fingers in my direction. "Hi, Edward."

I laughed at her and nodded. "Hi, Angela."

"Fire her!" Rosalie exclaimed again, throwing her hands out at her sides and huffing dramatically. "There's no logical reason to keep her there!"

"Aside from the fact that she'd probably own the damn store by the time I filed her termination papers?"

"I've got lawyers; you'll be fine."

"I'm tired of talking about this," she sighed again, running her hands through her hair before looking over at Rosalie. "You're early."

"I couldn't stop her, Bella. I tried stalling for as long as I could," Angela apologized again, shaking her head sadly.

I laughed again, leaning against the refrigerator casually and crossing my arms over my chest.

"I'm early because you need to go to work in the morning and the earlier that we start, the earlier that you'll be home in time for bed. And be _glad_," she started, pointing a dangerously long fingernail at both of us, "that I'm leaving you alone next week."

I leaned up and grinned over at her, fighting the urge to run over to her and hug her until she couldn't breathe anymore.

I wouldn't have to surrender Bella next Friday, either. I really would have an entire week with her to myself.

"I'm coming with you," I said quickly, nodding and standing up straight. "Tonight. I'm coming with you guys tonight."

Rosalie raised an eyebrow at me, her hand falling against her thigh before she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Are you wearing your hat, Edward?" Angela asked innocently. "Because I'm sure that I have one of Ben's baseball hats in the back of the car that you could use instead."

"No hat," I said for what felt like the twentieth time in just a few minutes. "I'm not hiding tonight."

"We're going to get trampled to death, aren't we?" Rosalie asked dryly.

"Rose!" Bella exclaimed, one of her hands shooting out in front of her as she pointed. "Can I talk to you?"

Before Rosalie could say anything, Bella was stalking towards her, hooking one arm around hers and dragging her out of sight.

"I'm really sorry," Angela apologized again.

I laughed and shook my head, looking over at the stove and wondering if I should've been stirring something.

"It's not a big deal. I'm just glad to see that it was the two of you and not some crazy stalker."

She laughed softly before walking over to me, hesitantly grabbing my hands in hers and squeezing them tightly.

"Uh," I mumbled, eyeing her wedding ring and straining to hear any traces of Rosalie's heels on the dining room floor.

That's just what I'd need at this point. To have Bella and Rosalie walk back into the kitchen to see my hands in Angela's and assume the worst; good Lord, I didn't want to be a part of _that_.

"She loves you," she said quietly.

I smirked and nodded, squeezing her hands in return as I relaxed a little.

She wasn't out to ruin my relationship with Bella. She was one of Bella's best friends and she was married. She was doing the best friend thing and telling me that Bella loved me so that she could get the reassurance that I loved her too.

I'd played this part in a few movies; I should've known the actions the minute they happened.

Not everyone in the world was out to get me and ruin things for me.

"I love her. Quite a bit, actually."

She smiled and stood up on her toes to kiss my cheek.

"I'm glad you're coming with us tonight."

She stepped back and over to the stove, flipping off the knobs and shaking her head down at the dinner that had sounded pretty damn good a few minutes ago.

"We're going to The Stadium to get something to eat," she explained, turning back to me. "Early Friday night ritual."

"We're eating in a stadium?"

"It's a restaurant on the main strip of Saratoga," she laughed. "Really good food."

"All right!" Rosalie shouted, her heels sounding through the dining room before she appeared in the doorway of the kitchen again. "I'm going over with Bella to help her get ready. Angela, help him."

She fluttered one of her hands in my direction and I pursed my lips, looking down at my well worn jeans and blue button-up shirt.

I looked fine. There was no need for me to change my clothes.

"Make him normal!" she ordered before sashaying out of the doorway.

I sputtered, drawing my eyebrows together and huffing until Bella came running into the kitchen to wrap her arms around my waist tightly.

"You're sure that you love me, right?" she asked meekly, looking up at me.

"If I didn't, I wouldn't be doing this." I smiled nervously and leaned down to kiss her softly. "Go."

"Bella!" Rosalie shrieked.

I could almost hear her tapping her toes on the living room carpet and shook my head, looking over at Angela as she stifled a laugh.

"Throw it all out," Bella sighed, motioning with her chin to the stove before leaning up and kissing me again. "I'll be back."

I nodded, kissing her once again before she walked out of my arms and into the dining room, her shoulders stiff and her face set.

"Do you honestly _know_ how much of a pain in the ass you are?" she shot off.

I laughed, shaking my head as Rosalie said something about being ungrateful and then heard the door slam as they left.

"All right," Angela sighed, shaking her head as she grabbed one of the pots and walked over to the sink.

Was everyone more efficient in my kitchen than I was?

"You're not going to… I don't know… put make-up on me or something are you?" I asked, watching as she effortlessly poured the water from the pot holding the shrimp down the drain.

She laughed, looking over her shoulder at me and shaking her head.

"No, no make-up. But…" She walked over to the garage and turned the pot upside down, half-cooked shrimp raining into the white bag. "Do you have any mousse?"

I sighed heavily and nodded, immediately knowing that it was going to be a very long night.

~*~

**And for the lovely people and readers recommending me on lion_lamb, The Fix, Rob's IMDb boards and every other place that I've been recommended on, I still absolutely fucking **_**love **_**and **_**adore**_** you. You guys keep me going even when Edward refuses to be written easily. Thank you so much for your support and comments and alerts and every other thing out there.**

**And to my lovely friend, Angie; you are amazing, chick. Thanks for everything!**

**Oh, and I've started a little LiveJournal thing of my own and it's got a preview of the story that I'll be working on when Stay is finished if you'd like to check it out. Link on my profile. :)  
**


	18. Lollipop

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**I don't even know where to start. As always, you're all pretty fucking amazing and I adore you all beyond what words can say. Strawberry shortcake doesn't hold a flame to you guys so thank you, thank you, thank you for reviewing, reading and recommending me.**

**I'm also doing my best to respond to all the reviews I get. I'm painfully shy so it's taking me a little while longer than it should be, but I promise you that starting this chapter, I will be responding to every review I receive.**

**Oh, and I've decided that I'll probably be posting a little teaser on my livejournal when the chapter is getting close to being finished, so if you're interested in that, be sure to go check it out. Link is on my profile. :)  
**

**I also have a song for this chapter: "Lollipop" by Framing Hanley.**

**Enjoy!**

~*~

***Bella***

"Where in the hell did you get this lacy blue thing from?"

I closed my eyes tightly, letting the unnecessarily hot water from the shower head run down my back as I crossed my arms on the top of my head.

I didn't care how much time she thought we were wasting; I was entirely too exhausted on so many different levels to forego taking a shower before going out for the night.

With Edward. Without a hat.

And while I was thrilled that he didn't want to hide anymore and was more than willing to go out into public with me by his side, I couldn't help but think of all of the things that could go wrong.

That was my nature; I worried entirely too much about absolutely everything.

I couldn't stop the small thrill that ran through me, though. He wanted people to see me with him; he wanted _everyone_ to know that we were together.

And that _almost_ canceled out the worry.

"Alice," I mumbled, rubbing my hands over my face and grabbing the extra shampoo bottle I'd left over here for instances such as this one.

Most of my toiletries and such were over at Edward's, but since I'd agreed to let Rosalie do what she wished with me just to get her to shut up and stop torturing my boyfriend, I was stuck with the shampoo that made my hair lie flat and lifeless on my shoulders.

Not that it would be noticeable by the time I walked out of the house again, but I'm sure Rosalie would curse at me throughout the course of my mini make-over for leaving my good shampoo at Edward's.

"She gave you _designer_ underwear?" Rosalie screeched, hitting the shower curtain.

I jumped and poured the shampoo into my palm, slapping the bottle back onto the side of the shower before scrubbing it into my hair.

"She slipped it into my bag before she left. I didn't ask for it."

"Do you know how much this shit must cost, Bella? How much did she give you?"

"Entirely too much."

I washed the shampoo out of my hair, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath in a sad attempt to wash the day's events out of my mind completely.

Between Jessica nonchalantly slapping the magazine article she'd clipped just for me onto the counter as she strolled into work that morning and then having an almost breakdown in Edward's kitchen, I needed a drink.

Maybe more than one.

Ten would probably work just fine.

"Have you shaved lately?"

I shook my head, sighing heavily. It was a good thing that she was my best friend otherwise I might've killed her long before now.

And maybe instead of just ten drinks, I'd up that to twenty. Who really needed to go into work without a hangover tomorrow morning?

"Yes."

"Everything?"

I rolled my eyes, running my hands through my wet hair and groaning.

"Why in the hell does it matter?"

"Have you slept with him yet?"

I pursed my lips and grabbed the equally unhelpful conditioner.

"No," I grumbled.

"Why the hell not?"

"Because it's too soon for that!" I huffed, squeezing the white conditioner into my hand before slapping that bottle down as well.

"Are you _sure_ you're in the same room with him all the time? The two of you are sexually charged or some stupid shit like that," she mumbled. "I thought you would've sealed the deal long ago."

"Rose," I sighed heavily, shaking my head as I scrubbed the conditioner into my hair. "We're just… I don't…"

"Spit it out, Bella."

I glared at the shower curtain, rinsing my hair out and standing underneath the spray for a few more minutes.

I don't even know why she was in the bathroom while I was taking a shower. She'd always been very good at keeping herself occupied and entertained before so I wasn't quite sure why she'd felt the need to follow me this time.

Unless she'd planned on asking me about my sex life in a place where I wouldn't be able to run away from her as easily as I normally did.

She was nothing if not sneaky.

"I'm kind of scared about it," I mumbled, rolling my head back and closing my eyes tightly.

Every time we'd gotten close to it, all that had been running through my brain was that it wouldn't be enough. It was too soon for us and it wouldn't be enough to keep him interested if I just gave in to it.

I'd wanted to. _God_, I'd wanted to. But then something would kick in and make me believe that I wouldn't be enough for him. That I'd disappoint him somehow and I wouldn't be able to take that look in his eyes when he told me that he'd only been joking.

About everything. Proving Jessica right. _About everything_.

I jumped, screaming and trying unsuccessfully to cover myself when the shower curtain was suddenly wrenched back, Rosalie's face appearing in the corner and glaring at me.

"What exactly are you scared of? I sure as hell hope it's not his…"

"No!" I shouted, placing my hand on her forehead and pushing her out of the tub. "I've got no damn problem with _that_."

"Then what _do_ you have a problem with?"

"What if I'm not good enough? It's not like I'm half as experienced as he is. I've been with one damn person my entire life."

And while we'd never talked about our sexual history with each other, I was pretty damn positive that he'd been with a whole hell of a lot more people than I had.

With the way he looked and how amazing he was, I didn't even want to really _think_ about trying to come up with a ballpark number.

It was just so much better if I didn't know.

I turned the water off and reached out with one hand to snatch my towel off of the rod and wrap it around me.

"From what I could tell of him, honey, he wouldn't give a damn if you were still a virgin."

I rolled my eyes and pushed the shower curtain back, tightening the knot around my chest and tilting my head at her.

She was still admiring the underwear that Alice had slipped into my duffel bag and I rolled my eyes again, bending over and wringing out my hair.

Discovering all of that when Edward and I were doing laundry the other night hadn't really been all that pleasant. And then trying to hide it from him – he really didn't need to see all of that just yet – was a completely different, difficult task on its own. Getting him to leave my side for more than a second that night had been like pulling my teeth out of my head.

I'd loved that he wanted me near him at all times; I just needed to hide the very expensive underwear that belonged in some kind of high priced store as opposed to my worn out duffel bag.

And when I'd actually let him make us dinner, I'd been quick to throw all of them into the washer and stand by it, watching it like a hawk and waiting for the timer to go off so that I could throw it in the dryer just as quickly.

And when they were dry, I'd distracted him by asking him to clean up our plates so that I could stuff them in my bag and then run up the stairs to hide them all in my dresser.

Where they had been safely hiding until Rosalie had barged her way into the house behind me, declaring that she was going to make Edward's mouth water.

"I just don't want it to be a deal breaker."

Rosalie looked over at me, one eyebrow raised before she lowered my underwear and placed it back on the counter, fisting her hands on her hips.

"Do you honestly not see the way that man looks at you? God damn woman, it's like he's always trying to find ways to drag you into a bedroom or any secluded area all the damn time."

I stepped out of the tub, shrugging uneasily and holding onto the knot of my towel tightly.

"I don't want to be a disappointment."

She huffed, throwing her hands at her sides and glaring at me.

"For God's sake, Bella, have a little more confidence in yourself than that! You're beautiful, you're successful and you could quite possibly be the perfect woman for the highly jumpy man across the street! Have a little faith, would you?"

I blinked at her, biting my bottom lip and crossing my arms over my chest.

I didn't dare bring up the fact that he was only jumpy when _she_ was around.

"I just don't want to ruin it," I said softly, rubbing my shoulders in an attempt to comfort myself.

It felt like I was being scolded by my parents or a teacher from high school for not doing a homework assignment that I'd been well aware of for a week.

"What makes you think that you will?"

"He's just… he's… I don't know… maybe I'm not…" I stuttered, shifting uncomfortably on my feet and looking down at the light pink bath mat I was standing on.

"He's in love with you," she said bluntly.

I looked back up at her, my bottom lip back in between my teeth as I nodded slowly.

"Anyone can see that. If you just laid there like a dead fish, I'm sure he wouldn't really care either way because he'll be getting the most intimate part of you. Well," she tilted her head, twisting her lips to the side and looking up at the ceiling, "maybe not like a dead fish…"

"Rose!" I whined, shaking my head and sighing heavily. "Would you stop, _please_?"

"I'm just trying to tell you that I don't understand what you're waiting for. He's leaving soon, Bella."

"I'm aware of that," I snapped, narrowing my eyes and glaring at her.

I'd had more than enough time to think about that today and I didn't want to do it anymore. This was what I was getting ready for; to go out and forget about absolutely everything that had happened while I'd been at work.

Rosalie didn't need to throw it into my face the first chance she got.

"So don't you think that it's about time you showed him how much you really love him?"

"It's not always about sex, you know. I show him that I love him every day."

"So you coming home today and having a little drama-filled breakdown is your way of showing him that you love him?"

"How do you even know that's what I did?" I asked, placing my hands on my hips and narrowing my eyes at her. "Maybe he doesn't even know!"

"Because I know you. And he seemed entirely too eager to help me murder Jessica, which only leads me to believe that you told him." She grabbed the underwear set and threw it at me before turning on her heel and pacing the length of the bathroom. "And you're right; it's not always about sex. But it helps."

"Edward and I don't need to have sex to know that we love each other," I sighed, stepping into the midnight blue lace panties I'd barely managed to catch.

"Oh, fuck that, Bella!" She turned back on her heel, pointing at me as she faced me again. "Do you _remember_ sex? Do you remember that it can actually be fun and fulfilling?"

I rolled my eyes, turning my back on her and dropping the towel to slip my arms through the bra straps and secure it in place on my chest.

Looking down, I tilted my head to the side and pursed my lips.

Well, with this bra, I was no longer a meager _B_ cup. It was safe to say that I'd jumped to at least a _D_.

"Of course I remember sex," I grumbled, turning back to face her and crossing my arms over my stomach. "It's just never been fun _or_ fulfilling to me."

Jake hadn't been the most attentive lover.

"Well, then you were doing it wrong."

"No shit." I sighed. "I'm just… scared."

She stared silently at me for a few moments before her shoulders hunched downward and she sighed, walking back over to me and placing her hands on my shoulders.

"There is _nothing_ for you to be scared of," she said quietly, looking directly into my eyes. "I've never seen someone look at someone else the way that Edward looks at you. He loves you and really, what more do you need to know?"

I chewed on my bottom lip again, taking a deep breath through my nose.

"I want to be able to… be good for him."

"You will be. Bella, when real emotions are involved; when you _really_ feel something for the other person, it'll be good no matter what. Stop worrying and let it happen, all right?" She smiled softly at me. "Just don't get pregnant. I'm too pretty to be an honorary aunt just yet."

I laughed and slapped at her arms, waving her away from me and walking out of the bathroom.

"Got it covered already!" I called out over my shoulder as I walked into my bedroom.

I took a deep breath as I saw the outfit that Rose had lain out for me, wincing at the black knee high boots my mother thought would be a good idea to give me for my birthday a few years ago sitting at the end of the air mattress.

"Hurry up in there, woman! I've still gotta do your hair and your make-up and once again, _we're wasting time_!"

I pursed my lips, hesitantly picking up the black, extremely low cut v-neck t-shirt that I hadn't been aware I even owned. Looking down at the jeans that she'd chosen, my stomach flipped over when I saw the damn skin-tight skinny jeans Rose had talked me into buying a few months ago.

She's really damn persuasive when she needs to be.

"Do me a favor and get me a beer!" I yelled, taking one more deep breath as I pulled the shirt over my head.

I turned to the full length mirror that was leaning against my open closet doors and swallowed hard, smoothing the front of the shirt down.

Oh, yes. I most definitely _needed_ to start drinking now.

~*~

Twenty minutes later, Angela and Edward walked through the front door just as Rosalie was putting the finishing touches on the foolish curls she insisted I needed to have in my hair.

And then she'd threatened Edward with a dull steak knife if he came up the stairs before I was finished.

Like I was one of her precious cars that she needed to look over and make sure was good enough to sell before I was placed on the lot.

Sighing, I watched in the mirror as she twirled the last chunk of hair around the curling iron, humming to herself and smiling satisfactorily at her handiwork.

"She's almost done, Bella," Angela said quietly, patting my shoulder.

"Is Edward… normal?" I asked dryly, sparing a glance at Rose in the mirror as I lifted the beer bottle to my lips again.

I was almost finished with my second one and I was already craving a third. Between Rose pulling hair out of my head and then attacking me with mascara wands and other make up brushes, I'd needed as much alcohol as possible.

"He looks great, Bella. Don't worry."

"We're still going to get trampled," Rosalie quipped, finally setting the curling iron down on the counter and unplugging it. "But he does look pretty damn hot, I must say."

"Thank you," Angela smiled, curtsying slightly before snatching my beer and taking a sip. "Are you done, Rose? I'm hungry."

Rosalie reached out and moved a piece of my hair back, snatching up the hair spray behind her and barely warning me to close my eyes before she started spraying.

"Okay, finished!" she chirped, snapping the can on the counter.

"You look really great, Bella," Angela smiled before grabbing my hand and pulling me out of the bathroom.

I laughed, following her into the hallway and down the stairs. I immediately smiled a little more when I saw Edward sitting at the table, absently tapping his fingertips against it and staring at the wall in front of him.

I swallowed hard, pressing my lips together and doing my best to calm the butterflies suddenly in my stomach as I wordlessly handed the beer bottle back to Angela.

Whatever she'd done to his hair worked _really well_. It was messy, as it always was, but she'd somehow managed to tame it and make it look natural for him. The button up shirt he'd been wearing earlier had been replaced with a black, form fitting t-shirt and I had to bite my lip when I saw the black leather jacket thrown over the back of the chair he was sitting in.

Good _God_, he'd managed to look even better than he normally did and the warm rush that spread through my stomach immediately shot down in between my thighs.

His head snapped over to us when he heard our heels on the floor and he stood up, his eyes locking with mine. My heart fluttered as I watched his mouth curl up into a crooked smirk and I had to suck in a deep breath, completely ignoring Angela and Rosalie behind me as I walked over to him.

"Hey," he breathed, grinning as he wound his arms around my waist and pulled me against him.

"Hey yourself," I laughed, my arms snaking around his neck.

He leaned down, brushing his lips against mine. My eyes fluttered closed and my hands curled into fists around his neck.

"You look beautiful," he whispered.

"You're not so bad yourself," I croaked, clearing my throat and forcing my eyes open again.

He was smirking at me again, his eyes completely locked with mine and his fingertips digging into my back slightly.

And I suddenly didn't want to leave the house anymore. I wanted to stay right where I was, completely wrapped up in everything about Edward and not have to worry about anything for the rest of the night.

Just the two of us. Together. Preferably without so many clothes in between us.

"Enough of that, lovebirds!" Rosalie exclaimed, clapping her hands as she finished walking down the stairs. "Places to go, people to see; you know what's going on."

I wanted to hit her. Hard. Many, many times.

Angela laughed behind me and I sighed, leaning up to kiss him softly before backing down and stepping away from him to grab the dress jacket I usually wore when going out.

Edward grabbed it from my hands, leaning down to brush a kiss against my cheek as he helped me into it and I bit my bottom lip, smiling like an ass as I pulled it over my shoulders.

"You two are absolutely sickening," Rosalie grumbled, rolling her eyes as she grabbed her own black pea coat and slid into it.

"And damn proud of it," Edward stated brightly, shrugging his own coat on and grabbing my hand as we started toward the front door.

"I brought my camera," Angela stated, shrugging her shoulders and smiling timidly as she pulled her hair out of the back of her coat. "I hope that's okay."

I looked up at Edward who merely grinned at her and nodded.

"It's fine with me."

I squeezed his hand and waited for Rosalie and Angela to walk out before I followed them, locking and closing the front door behind me.

"You're sure that you're okay with this?" I asked him quietly as we walked down the stairs and over to Angela's waiting car. "We really don't have to go if you don't want to."

"Stop worrying," he whispered, leaning down and kissing the bottom of my ear as he opened the car door for me. "I want to go."

I pursed my lips and nodded, surrendering and climbing into the back of the car, immediately assaulted with one of Rosalie's _night out_ mixes as the car roared to life.

I shook my head at Def Leppard's _Pour Some Sugar on Me_ that was sounding throughout the quiet neighborhood and sighed heavily.

It really was no wonder that none of my other neighbors tried talking to me. With Rosalie's loud mouth screaming at me from the driveway every other week and then the loud music that sounded out of the car's stereo each time she showed up, it was amazing that no one had called the cops to complain.

I watched through the front window as Edward rounded the front of the car, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets and a small smile on his face. I tilted my head, leaning back against the seat and breathing out a sigh.

He got in the other side and immediately slid over to me after closing the door, wrapping one arm around my shoulders and pulling me against him. I grinned to myself, burying my face in his jacket and resting one of my hands on his knee.

"Hey," Rosalie said, leaning forward in her seat as Angela pulled out of the driveway. She popped back up a few seconds later with Angela's small silver camera in her hands before turning in her seat to look back at us. "Smile, you two."

"And so it begins," I mumbled, smiling quickly for her as she took the picture.

~*~

I took a deep breath as the Tavern came into view an hour and a half later, my hand firmly latching onto Edward's as we walked up the steep hill from where we'd parked.

We'd made it through dinner without any occurrences. Our waiter was a man who seemed not to give two shits about who was sitting with us and the entire place was fairly cleared out by the time we arrived. We'd eaten and had a few more drinks before paying the bill and finally making our way to the Tavern.

The streets were busy, as they usually were on Friday nights, and even though I was fully aware that at any minute someone could come rushing up to us and start screaming at him, I was completely at ease.

It felt normal. We were all talking and laughing as we approached the bar and began to dig out our licenses to show the bouncer sitting on the stool with a heavy down coat wrapped around his shoulders.

It might've felt a lot more normal because of all the alcohol I'd already consumed, but at least I was enjoying myself.

We were a very normal group of friends out on a Friday, enjoying ourselves and completely forgetting all about what had gone on earlier in the night. I was with my boyfriend who seemed to be soaking in all the sights at once as he handed his license over to the bouncer, his other hand still firmly gripping mine as he looked over the bouncer's head and into the crowded bar behind him.

The music from the live band on the first floor was almost enough to drown out any other noise as we waited, shivering a little as the wind chose that moment to blow through. Edward was quick to wrap me in his arms, rubbing his hands up and down my upper arms in an attempt to keep me warm. I smiled up at him, leaning up on my toes to kiss the bottom of his chin.

The bouncer snorted, a bushy eyebrow raised as he looked up at Edward. And then I watched as his eyes widened, quickly looking back down at the card in his hand before looking up again and I snorted when he merely held out Edward's license to him and actually got up to hold the door open for us.

Edward sighed heavily, letting me go as he took his license and placed his free hand on the small of my back, nodding his silent _thanks_ to the bouncer and leading me into the bar, following behind Angela and Rosalie as they walked in before us.

We followed Rosalie up the stairs, bypassing drunken girls attempting to walk down them in six inch heels without falling and laughing as they latched onto the railing, slurring that they needed to find the cell phone they already had in a death grip in their other hand.

We reached the second flight of stairs that were slightly quieter than the first flight and I smiled, shaking my head.

"Feeling all right back there?" I asked, looking back at Edward.

He laughed, nodding as he took the steps behind me two at a time, grinning cheekily as his eyes flicked to my ass. I rolled my eyes and laughed, reaching out to gently smack his shoulder.

"If the only attention I get tonight is from the bouncer, I'm okay with that."

"I wouldn't count on it!" Rosalie sang as she rounded the corner to the third flight.

I rolled my eyes and I saw Angela shaking her head.

"How many damn levels is this fucking bar?" Edward asked.

"Four," Angela laughed, grabbing her camera from her pocket and stopping us before we stepped onto the third floor landing. "Rose, get over there."

She huffed, throwing her hands in the air before stomping over to us and standing next to me.

"I need beer!" she declared, glaring up at Angela.

"You'll get your beer." She waved her off and hopped up two steps, the camera flickering to life as she pointed it at us. "But for a photographer, I never take any pictures when we go out. Tonight, I'm changing that. Smile!" she demanded.

I laughed, leaning back into Edward as he wrapped an arm around my waist and I slung an arm over Rosalie's shoulders. She relaxed enough to lean against me, smiling brightly as she flipped her middle finger up in front of her.

"Nice, Rose," Angela grumbled, shaking her head as she pressed the button.

"Can I have a beer now?" she whined.

The camera lens folded back into itself and she nodded, waving one arm at her side as she stuck the camera back in her pocket and let Rosalie sail by her to finish walking up the steps.

We finally made it to the fourth floor and I reached behind me to grab Edward's hand again, twining our fingers together as we walked through the doorway and into a solid wall of people.

I felt his fingers tense around my hand and quickly squeezed his, following the path Rosalie and Angela were making to the bar in the middle of the large room.

We weaved around bodies dancing and grinding on each other as they held beer bottles and cups full of what I could only imagine was strong liquor over their heads before we finally found a break in the crowd that surrounded the bar.

"I've got this round!" Rosalie shouted over Pink's _Sober_ as she leaned against the bar and pulled a twenty out of her bra. "Edward, what do you want?"

I looked back at him and swallowed hard when I saw the sheer panic on his face as he looked around the crowded room.

No. He wasn't going to panic. This night was not about panic and I wasn't going to let him regret coming out. If he really wanted to go, I'd be the first one out of here, but he deserved a night out too.

He'd been in his house all damn day, waiting for me to get home only to be greeted with nerves and tears. He deserved this night out as much as I did and I wasn't going to let him panic before anything actually happened.

"Heineken, Rose!" I yelled back, reaching up with my free hand to grab the back of his neck and pull his face down to mine.

His wide eyes met mine and I pressed my lips forcefully to his, yanking on his other hand and pulling him even closer to me. He didn't respond to me right away, his body tense against mine as he stiffly wrapped his free arm around my waist.

I started to move against him, swaying my hips back and forth against his in time to the beats pulsing around us. I moved my hand from his neck, draping my arm over his shoulder as I opened my mouth and dragged my tongue slowly across his bottom lip.

He seemed to snap out of it then, his body relaxing minutely against mine as he started moving with me. The arm around my waist relaxed as well, his hand firmly pressed against my back. His mouth opened to mine, his tongue snaking out to tangle with mine as we continued to move our hips in time with the music.

"Hey! Here's your beer!" Rosalie screamed into my ear.

I growled, slowly backing away from him and turning to narrow my eyes at her. She smiled brightly and handed me my Coors Light and Edward his Heineken before tipping her head back and sipping off of her Miller Light.

I watched Edward as I lifted my own beer to my lips, triumphantly noting that he didn't seem nearly as nervous as he had a second ago.

Huh. I'm very effective when I need to be, it seems.

"Come on!" Rosalie screamed, grabbing my arm and pulling us toward the other side of the room.

I was quick to grab Edward's hand, pulling him with me as Rosalie somehow managed to get Angela's hand twisted up with mine. She led us over to a window right next to the ATM machine and the doors to the bathrooms.

A group of four blonde girls wearing close to nothing was walking out at the same time we stopped moving, their gaze immediately landing on Edward as he stood behind me, his hand still firmly locked in mine.

They stopped, each one running into each other but not seeming to care as their mouths simultaneously fell open.

I wanted to be worried, but could only laugh at them as I shook my head and looked back at Edward. He'd seen them and I watched as his jaw tensed, his hand squeezing mine tightly as he looked down at me.

I turned completely, pressing myself against him and smiling up at him as I pulled my beer in between us.

"What are you two doing?" Rosalie screamed into my ear, her body already moving to _Don'tcha _by the Pussycat Dolls. "Dance, damn it, and keep drinking!"

I ignored her, my eyes locked with Edward's as I stepped up on my toes and put my lips against his ear.

"Did you mean it about wanting everyone to know that I'm with you?"

He nodded stiffly and I rolled my eyes, kissing his ear gently.

He might've nodded, but with the way he was tensed against me and slowly scanning the bar, I was beginning to think that he didn't.

I wasn't going to let it bother me, though. He was nervous, which was understandable, and it was my job to calm him down.

"If you didn't, I'll back off."

He shook his hand out of mine and both of his arms wound around my waist, securely keeping me close to him. I smiled and nodded, wrapping my arms completely around his neck and quickly stepping down to place my lips against his again.

"Don't you two ever _stop_?" Rosalie screamed, gently nudging my shoulder.

"Rose, leave them alone!" I heard Angela scream back.

I started moving against him, placing my beer bottle in between his shoulder blades as I dragged my hips across his again, smiling against his mouth when I felt him start to move with me almost immediately.

I pulled away from him, still moving my hips against his and meeting his eyes as they opened.

And when he smirked, his body completely relaxing against mine as he yanked me even closer to him, I felt like jumping around and squealing like a little girl.

"_Finally_!" Rose yelled, quickly moving in and dancing next to us.

I looked over at Angela who rolled her eyes, shook her head and laughed before grabbing the last drink she'd allow herself for the night and joining in with us.

I turned around in his arms, pressing my back against his chest and looked over at the group of girls that were now shamelessly gawking at us. I smiled innocently at them, raising one arm up behind me and wrapping it back around his neck.

And when he dropped his head to bury it in my neck, it was pretty damn priceless watching the way their jaws dropped.

"You're going to give them heart attacks!" Angela laughed into my ear.

I shrugged, smiling over at her as I lifted the beer bottle back to my lips. At least they'd know that he was off the market; damn it, he was _mine _and if we were going to do it, I was damn well going to make sure that no one had any doubts about it.

"And _there's_ the Bella that's been hiding for entirely too long!" Rose declared, tapping her beer bottle against mine before throwing her head back and downing the rest of her beer. "Who's got next round?"

I rolled my eyes, laughing as I leaned into Edward and continued to move with him.

Fifteen minutes later when all of our bottles were officially empty, Edward offered to go up and get another round for us. Rosalie had complained that it was about time and I'd smacked her, rolling my eyes again before kissing him and watching as he moved through the crowd and up to the bar.

He'd moved on from panicked and nervous to relaxing completely while we danced and screamed at each other over the music. It was almost like a few hours ago had been a completely different day altogether. We were enjoying ourselves, no one had tried coming up to him if they'd recognized him and it was just… _normal_.

Again, it could've been the alcohol finally kicking in full throttle, but it was nice to pretend in my head that everything was just completely normal for a little while.

"Night's been going pretty well so far!" Angela screamed over Rihanna's _Disturbia_.

I smiled and nodded, raising my hands over my head and quickly sliding in between Rosalie and Angela to dance with them. Rosalie stood in front of me, her arms out at my sides as Angela danced behind me, her back to mine.

It wasn't long before Angela stopped us, whipping out her camera to snap a picture of the three of us.

"Uh, Bella?" Rosalie shouted as Angela put the camera back in her pocket, her eyes darting from my face to the bar. "Your man's been spotted."

I quickly stepped out from in between them, my eyes immediately landing on him as he stood leaning against the bar. One of the blondes that had been gawking at us earlier was standing right in front of him, her hand on his chest and an inviting smile on her face as she yammered on about something I had no desire to know about.

She was either too drunk or too stupid to notice that he was slowly backing away from her and moving as close as he possibly could to the guy waiting for a beer behind him.

"Oh, I don't fucking _think_ so!"

I took a deep breath as I headed over, my jaw clenched tightly as I shoved my way through drunken people attempting to dance before finally reaching him.

I glared at the side of the blonde's head before sliding in between them, effectively removing her hand from his chest and wrapping my arms around his neck.

He smiled nervously down at me, placing one of his hands on my waist. I saw him mouth my name as he shook his head and opened mine to respond.

"Is there a _problem_?"

The squeaky voice I heard in my ear as I was halfway to my toes in an attempt to actually hear him only made my eyes narrow before I turned around to face her, crossing my arms over my chest.

I wanted nothing to do with any more squeaky voiced, annoying, know-it-all girls tonight. They weren't going to ruin my nights or my relationship anymore; I was tired of it and I wasn't going to just let it happen any longer.

"_My_ boyfriend," I said through my teeth. "Keep your hands _off_ of him."

"He's _single_," she managed to sneer even as she slurred her words, flipping her hair over her shoulder and nearly falling down because of it.

And it was really hard to be pissed off at someone who was having a hard time standing on her own two feet. Her eyes were only partially open, her hair was a mess now that I was up close and personal with her and she smelled like cigarettes.

It was even harder to be pissed off knowing that Edward hadn't been the least bit interested in her at all. It was hard to be anything but pretty fucking elated and amused at that point.

"No," I laughed, shaking my head. "He's not."

He chose that moment to bend down and wrap his arms around my waist, two beers in each hand as he rested his chin on my shoulder. I looked over at the bar and grabbed Rosalie's Miller Light, smiled innocently at the blonde and led him away from the bar.

"You're fucking amazing," he whispered into my ear, softly kissing my neck as we walked.

A thrill ran up and down my spine and I smiled, gleefully placing my free hand on one of his wrists as we approached the spot I'd left Angela and Rosalie.

"I am really fucking proud of you right now!" Rosalie shouted, laughing loudly as she took the beer from my hands and continued dancing.

"Me too," he whispered into my ear again, letting me take the beer from his hand before starting to move behind me again.

I closed my eyes, smiling like an ass as I moved with him and rested my head back on his shoulder. I saw the flash of Angela's camera behind my eyelids and smiled a little more, opening one eye to wink at her.

"I want those pictures!" Edward shouted, standing up a little straighter and pointing the end of his beer bottle at her.

She laughed and nodded before Rosalie grabbed her arm and demanded her to dance.

The music changed, switching seamlessly into _Lollipop_ by Framing Hanley and my eyes snapped open as I turned in his arms and quickly draped my arms over his shoulders again.

He stood up straight, one eyebrow raised as he lifted the bottle to his lips and placed his free hand on my hip.

I fucking loved this song. And I suddenly loved it a hell of a lot more when I could dance with Edward to it.

I pressed myself against him, grinding my hips against his in time with the music and watched as his eyes widened before he dropped his other hand and held on tightly to his beer bottle.

"Move, Edward," I demanded, running my hand from his shoulder and down his chest.

I watched him swallow hard before he started moving his hips into mine again and I bit my bottom lip as I moved over slightly so that one of his legs was in between mine.

I looked up into his eyes again, another thrill running through me and heat spreading in between my legs when I saw that they were darkened and half-lidded.

I started moving side to side, dragging my hips against his and keeping my eyes locked with his even as I felt him getting aroused against me. I licked my bottom lip before bringing my beer to my mouth, watching him as I tipped my head back.

The hand he had resting on my hip moved down and over slightly, resting on my ass as he moved closer and pulled me completely against him. My breathing sped up as I felt every inch of him and I quickly brought the bottle away from my mouth.

The last thing I needed was to start choking and end up embarrassing myself beyond repair.

He leaned down, our hips still moving together, and placed his lips on my neck. I closed my eyes, my free hand moving up from his chest to cup the back of his neck and tangle in his hair.

"I want you," he whispered into my ear, thrusting his hips against mine once.

I couldn't stop the moan that fell through my lips and fisted my hand in his hair, my eyes slowly opening as I pulled on his hair to get him to back up.

That was all it took. The insecurities I'd had earlier in the evening, the worries I had about not being enough for him; all of it disappeared with those three small words.

He stood up straight, his jaw tense. I looked behind me and handed my bottle of beer to Rosalie – who was openly watching us even as she continued dancing with Angela – before I turned back to Edward and cupped his face in my hands.

"Take me home, Edward," I said, determined. "_Now_."

~*~

**Yeah, I'm evil. I know it. Next chapter is what everyone has been waiting for.**


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**So I'll save the long ass note I have for the end because I know how you've all been waiting for this to happen.**

**In the mean time…**

**NSFW. Or school.**

~*~

***Edward***

My eyes flicked from Bella's to over her shoulder, watching as Rosalie and Angela merely lifted their eyebrows at me. Rosalie seemed to toast me with Bella's beer bottle before tipping it back and drinking what I could only assume was more than half of it in one gulp.

_"Take me home, Edward. __**Now**__."_

Her words were ringing in my head and within the five seconds that she'd said them, my entire body was completely alert, willing and raring to go.

More so than before the song had started or before she'd started grinding her hips into mine.

I hadn't thought it was possible until those words had left her lips.

I looked back down at Bella, reaching up to place my hands on her wrists.

"You're sure?" I mouthed to her.

She rolled her eyes, smirking and nodding as she dropped her hands from my face, grabbing my hands and linking our fingers together.

"Cab?" I mouthed again.

She nodded again, stepping up on her toes and forcefully pressing her lips to mine once before stepping back down and turning to face Rosalie and Angela.

"We're leaving!" she screamed, briefly stepping away from me to kiss both of their cheeks. "Call you tomorrow!"

And with that, she walked ahead of me and pulled me from the room, pushing through the drunken mass of people and out into the stairwell.

I followed behind her, my heart hammering against my ribs as we descended the stairs, the people we passed only ending up as large blurs of color and voices.

The only thing that I was focused on was Bella; completely and entirely focused on everything about her. The way the curls in her hair bounced, the way her hips moved, how she had her hand firmly tucked into mine, and how she was so completely confident of each step she took down the stairs.

Of course, the almost painful throbbing in my jeans wasn't really deterring me from it all, either. If anything, it was intensifying it.

We were stepping onto the second floor landing when she turned, grabbed my shirt in her hands and slammed me back against the wall, her lips on mine before I had a chance to do much of anything else.

I breathed out a moan into her mouth before I wrapped my arms tightly around her and turned us, pressing her back into the wall and opening my mouth to hers. She whimpered, her hands still fisted in my shirt as she attempted to pull me closer to her.

"Ugh, that's disgusting," I heard some girl say from behind us, her heels clicking on the stairs as she passed by us.

"Get a room!" a man shouted, his muffled footsteps following the heeled ones up the stairs.

I backed away from Bella, looking over my shoulder and narrowing my eyes at the redhead and who I assumed was her boyfriend as they disappeared around the corner.

"Not such a bad idea, huh?" Bella breathed, one of her hands cupping the side of my neck as she rolled her hips against mine.

I briefly closed my eyes, biting down hard on my bottom lip to suppress the moan that was lingering in the back of my throat.

"No," I managed, grabbing her hand again and taking the lead as I started back down the stairs.

We finally made it outside, bypassing the cluster of drunken smokers standing outside and telling everyone how much they loved each other. I shook my head and jumped at the first cab I saw sitting on the side of the road.

I didn't even care if someone else had had it called for them. There were things that needed to be taken care of.

Immediately.

And since there wasn't anyone sitting in the back of the cab, I was claiming it.

Drunken idiots be damned.

I let Bella slide in the back first and had enough common sense to pull the collar of my jacket up around my neck as Bella told the driver her address, hunching down in my seat and quickly grabbing Bella's hand again as she sat back in the seat.

The cab pulled away from the curb and I looked over at her as she slowly picked up our hands and began playing with my fingertips. She studied each one carefully, gently grabbing each one in between her thumb and forefinger of her free hand before she looked over at me from under her eyelashes.

And that was it. She could've asked me to strip entirely naked right then and there and I would've done it without a second thought.

My mouth fell open, a strangled noise that I didn't recognize sounding out of my throat as she brought one of my fingertips to her lips and sucked it into her mouth.

She kept her eyes on mine as I felt her tongue circling and flicking around my fingertip and I was pretty sure it was safe to say that my jaw was officially unhinged.

She moved onto my next fingertip and the same strangled noise escaped my throat, my breathing speeding up again as my other hand clawed its way across my lap and onto her knee.

She moved onto the next one, her eyes still connected with mine as I dragged my hand down her thigh, gripping it tightly and making those damn strangling noises that I was apparently only capable of.

And when she reached my pinky, I was pretty sure I felt my jaw hit my lap as she sucked the whole thing into her mouth. I wrapped my arm entirely around her thigh, hitching it over my lap and sliding as close to her as I could possibly get as I felt her tongue swirling circles around it.

She slowly slid it out of her mouth, licking her lips as she dropped our hands back to her lap.

I huffed out a breath and reached forward with my free hand to grab the back of her head and crash my lips onto hers, tangling my hands in her hair. She reached out with her hand, fisting it into the collar of my shirt and yanking me almost on top of her.

"Hey!"

We both jumped apart and I glared up at the driver as he tapped on the Plexiglas that separated us from him.

"You'll pay extra for that!"

I continued to glare at him as Bella cleared her throat and gently pushed me back into a seated position. I grumbled under my breath, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her against me again.

"Soon," she whispered, gently biting the bottom of my ear.

It was the longest thirty minutes of my entire life. I was touching every available inch of her and she'd had her hand up the front of my shirt for the better part of fifteen minutes, running her fingernails across the top of my jeans.

But never going any further.

Which I could appreciate since the driver kept shooting warning, curious glances in the rear view mirror each time one of us whimpered or made any sort of noise, but God _damn it_, she was driving me _crazy_.

She'd been playing with the button of my jeans and was running her fingertip down the zipper, seeming to get great enjoyment out of the way my breath hitched each time she did so.

And when my head finally cleared when her hand trailed back to my stomach, the driver seemed to _know_ when my hand trailed up the front of her shirt and he cleared his throat loud enough to warn me to back off.

It was like dealing with a very overprotective sibling.

Her huffs of disappointment only made me feel a slightly bit better until she started with the damn button and zipper on my jeans again.

The driver never said anything about _that_.

So when my house came into view, I was quick to grab my wallet and throw probably more money than absolutely necessary at him as he stopped the car in the middle of the road between our homes.

I slammed my way out of the cab, nearly tripping on my damn feet as I waited for her to climb out.

And for once in the entire time I'd known her, she was ten times more graceful than I could've claimed to be a second ago.

Deciding not to dwell on something as stupid as _that_, I wrapped an arm around her waist and we both half ran up the stairs to my porch.

She was quick to start kissing my neck as I fumbled with the keys. I nearly dropped them when she stuck her hand in my front pocket before I was finally able to stick the key in the lock, turn the knob and practically fall into the house.

"Eager?" she asked innocently, jiggling the keys out of the door and closing it behind her as I stripped off my jacket and threw it on the back of the rocking chair.

"Not at all," I shook my head, grinning at her as I flung my shoes off of my feet and waited for her to drop the keys on the table.

She did, raising an eyebrow at me as she crossed her arms over her waist.

"Well, in that case, I think I'm thirsty," she said easily, shrugging as she began to walk by me.

I grabbed her around the waist, pulling her hard against me as she laughed, her arms immediately circling my neck.

"I don't think so," I laughed, shaking my head as I fused my mouth to hers.

She sighed, relaxing against me as her hands tangled in my hair and her mouth opened to mine.

"Do you have any idea," I started, slowly running my hands under her jacket and up to her shoulders, "what you do to me?"

She tilted her head back, looking down her nose at me as she fisted her hands in my hair.

"Show me," she said, her voice low.

I kept my eyes on hers as I slid the jacket from her shoulders, letting it drop to the floor in a heap behind her as she moved her hands from my hair and pulled her against me again. I pressed my lips to hers again, my hands running underneath the back of her shirt as she started pulling on the shoulders of mine.

I broke away from her, letting her pull it over my head before kissing her again and backing her against the door. She ran her hands over my chest, wedging her leg in between mine and gently rubbing her thigh against me.

I moaned, shifting my hips against her leg and pulling away long enough to yank her shirt over her head before attaching my mouth to hers again. I trailed my hands up her sides, stopping at her bra and sliding my fingers underneath the wire to trace the undersides of her breasts.

I'd marvel at the stunning contraption she'd covered them with when I could think a little more clearly.

"I need you," she moaned out, her hands trailing down my chest and latching onto the button of my jeans.

My heart jumped, all but leaping out of my chest at her words.

I'd heard other women say that they _wanted_ me, but not a single one of them had ever said that they _needed_ me.

I quite liked it. I liked it even more simply because it was Bella who said it.

"Let's go," I breathed, my chest heaving as I looked down to watch her hands easily slide the button through the hole, "upstairs."

I continued to watch as she pinched the zipper tab in between her fingers and slowly dragged it down, another moan making its way out of my throat as I felt the backs of her fingers trail over me.

I looked up at her to see that she had her bottom lip caught in between her teeth and quickly leaned in to capture her top lip in between both of mine, my tongue immediately finding its way into her mouth as I reached behind her and unsnapped her bra.

She slipped out of it, throwing it next to us and pressing her chest against mine.

"Christ, you feel good," I whispered, kissing down to her neck and trailing my fingertips over her sides again.

Her hands were back at my jeans again, slowly sliding them down over my hips and letting them fall around my ankles.

"Bella," I breathed, swallowing hard as I moved my hands in between us and cupped her breasts.

She whimpered, her fingertips trailing around the top of my boxers as she thrust her hips against mine. I moaned again, flicking my thumbs over her nipples and sucking on her neck when I heard her moan.

"Upstairs," she breathed, her fingernails digging into my waist. "Please."

I grudgingly backed away from her to kick my feet out of my jeans, bending down and tearing off my socks. I watched as she ran her hands through her hair, her chest heaving as she stayed leaning back against the door and waiting for me.

Her hair was sticking up in a few different directions, her lips were red and swollen and her eyes were dark and partially closed.

She was fucking gorgeous.

And she was _mine_.

I stood up straight and grabbed her hand, pulling her against me and kissing her again as I started to back toward the stairs.

I had to be touching her. I didn't want to be far from her; not now. Hell, not _ever_, but especially not right now.

"Edward," she laughed, her hands wrapping around my neck as she stumbled along with me.

I laughed with her, quickly reaching down and fumbling with the button to her jeans, backing away from her long enough to look behind me and see that we were standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"I have to get these boots off first," she stated, chuckling a little at me as she walked by me and sat down on one of the steps.

I quickly bent down in front of her, gently pushing her hands away as I grabbed the bottom of her shoe and looked up to meet her eyes. She leaned back, propping her elbows on the step behind her as she folded her bottom lip into her mouth.

I slid the shoe off of her foot, grabbing her sock in the process and threw it out to my side before grabbing her other foot and doing the same.

I stood up on my knees, forcing myself between her legs as I crawled up onto the bottom step and pressed my lips to hers, bracing my arms on either side of her.

She leaned back, her hands resting on my shoulders as she slid up one step. I followed her, quickly reaching in between us and grabbing the waistband of her jeans to keep her in one place for more than a second.

"Off," I managed against her mouth, slipping the button through the hole and hastily pulling the zipper down.

She lifted her hips as I pulled them down, throwing them over the banister and I followed her as she slid up one more step. I ran my hand down her thigh, my tongue tangling around hers as I wrapped her leg around my waist.

We both moaned when our hips came into direct contact and I pressed my lips to hers a little more forcefully than before, running my hand back up her thigh and tracing the line of her panties.

She moaned softly, her hands reaching up to tangle in my hair as she slid up one more step. Again, I followed her and before she could move any farther, I wrapped one finger into the edge of her panties and pulled them down.

Her hands tightened into fists in my hair as her lips moved hungrily against mine. I slipped her panties over her feet and threw them over the banister as well, hovering over her as I met her eager mouth with mine.

"Need you," she whimpered out, her hands moving from my hair, trailing down my back and grabbing onto the waistband of my boxers.

My heart jumped again and I shifted against her hips, smirking at the whimper that fell from her lips.

"I love you," I breathed, trying to catch my breath as I broke away from her to kiss down her neck and onto her chest.

"I love you too," she breathed back, her breath hitching in her chest as I sucked one of her nipples into my mouth.

She shoved my boxers down the rest of the way and dragged her fingernails up my back, arching her back as I reached up and began kneading her other breast.

I kicked my boxers off before moving from her breasts and leaned over her, resting my forehead against hers as I positioned myself easily in between her thighs. She slid to the very edge of the step she was on and wound her arms around my neck, her eyes locked with mine.

"Tell me to stop if…" I started, swallowing hard.

The thought of having to stop once I got started was damn near painful to think about. But I'd do anything to keep her from hurting; do anything to keep from causing her any type of pain at all. Even if that meant pacing around outside in the freezing cold weather to get myself back to normal again.

Whatever that might've been. The only type of normal that I recognized anymore was when Bella was near me.

I wouldn't compromise that for anything.

"Say another word and I'll go home," she threatened, digging her fingernails into my shoulder blades.

I leaned down, my lips resting against hers and my eyes rolling back in my head as she thrust her hips up a little.

I slid into her quickly, a long, loud moan sounding from the both of us as I fought to stay still in an effort to let her adjust to me.

And it was _not_ by any means easy to stay still. Being this close to her, being completely open and vulnerable with her only managed to heighten all of the feelings and emotions dancing with her had brought to the surface earlier.

"You _are_ home," I grunted through my teeth, my heart in overdrive and my breathing coming in short gasps as I stared down into her eyes.

And she was. She was the epitome of what I'd learned to call home and being with her this way; being _inside of her_ and being able to love her _this way_ just solidified everything I'd ever felt for her.

"Yes," she whispered, slowly starting to move her hips up into mine.

I breathed out a small, almost relieved laugh and grabbed onto one of the posts of the railing to steady myself as I started to move with her.

"Oh, God," she moaned, throwing her head back and resting it on the step above her.

I kissed her throat, moaning into it as she started to move her hips faster against mine. She wrapped her legs around my waist, one of her hands moving to my outstretched arm and grabbing onto it tightly.

I widened my knees out on the step I was on, my free hand running up and down her thigh as I continued to meet her thrusts with my own.

"Bella," I moaned, moving from her throat to nip at her bottom lip.

She tilted her head up, her mouth attacking mine as her other hand tangled in my hair again, pulling slightly.

"More," she breathed against my mouth, her legs tightening around my waist and I hissed a breath in through my teeth at being pushed deeper into her. "Faster."

I did as she requested, the familiar tightening in the pit of my stomach getting stronger and coiling even tighter.

"Bella," I groaned, moving my hand from the post and gripping her hips tightly in my hands.

She moved her hand from my hair, slapping it against the wall next to us and digging her fingernails into the paint as she grabbed onto the post I'd previously been holding on to with the other.

She threw her head back and I felt her starting to shake slightly, her eyes closed tightly as she let out one of the longest, sexiest fucking moans I'd ever heard.

"Edward, I'm so…"

"Yes," I moaned, my hips working against hers and my fingertips digging into her skin.

I moved one hand from her hip, bringing it in between us and finding her bundle of nerves quickly. She squeaked out a moan, her back arching up off the stairs and her hips bucking erratically against mine.

I leaned over her again, placing open mouthed kisses over her shoulders.

I was close. Everything inside of me was ready, begging for the release I knew was on its way, responding to the way Bella's body was shaking and jerking underneath mine.

I felt her clench down around me and that was all it took; both of us crying out and moaning into each other as we reached our peaks.

I reached out with both of my hands, bracing myself on the edge of the stairs in an effort not to crush her as I finished and buried my face in her neck.

I felt like I had turned into mush; every inch of me was completely spent and satiated, satisfied and happier than hell about being with her.

And I knew that while I had the little bit of energy left to hold myself up, I should pick her up and stumble the rest of the way up the stairs to get us both rightfully into bed so that I could convince her that it really was possible for me to actually be romantic.

And maybe be able to pull off a longer lasting experience.

But the thought of leaving her and not being able to feel this sense of finally being _whole _after all this time was too damn much to deal with right now.

I looked up at her, reaching over with a shaky hand to push her hair out of her face. She grinned up at me, grabbing the back of my neck and pulling my lips down to hers.

I kissed her softly, lazily dragging my lips over hers and opening my mouth to hers as she traced my top lip with her tongue. Her tongue slowly twisted around mine, her hands relaxing against my neck and slowly trailing down over my shoulders.

"Bella," I whispered, pulling away from her.

"Hm?" she hummed, reaching up to run her fingers through my hair.

"Let's go…" I looked up toward the top step and smirked slightly, "up."

She laughed and nodded, her legs falling from my waist and her feet planted firmly on the step I was still kneeling on. I kissed her again, reluctantly sliding out of her and feeling slightly satisfied when I heard her whimper her disagreement.

Not that I didn't know exactly how she felt, though.

"Hold on to me," I breathed against her lips, gathering up the little amount of strength I had left as I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her tightly against me again.

Her arms wound around my neck and her legs were back around my waist as I reached over to grab the railing with one hand and stand up straight. She buried her head in my chest, her lips grazing my collarbone as I struggled to walk up the steps on legs that felt like gelatin.

The stairs. I had sex with Bella on the _stairs_. And while I would love this house and especially those stairs for the rest of my damn life, our first time together should _not_ have been on the stairs.

It should've been in my bed, it shouldn't have been rushed and we should've taken our time with each other. Explored. Admired.

I walked into my bedroom, my weak legs walking over to her side of the bed and gently sitting her down on the edge. I bent down in front of her, pushing hair behind her ear before resting my hands on her knees.

"Are you okay?" I asked softly, rubbing my thumbs in circles on her knees.

She smiled and reached up to run her hands through my hair as she nodded.

"I don't think I've ever felt so good before," she said quietly.

And it was _really_ hard to regret where it happened when I heard those words from her.

I'd had the chance to show the woman I loved just how much she meant to me and no, it wasn't what I'd originally had in mind for our first time. But it was us and we'd been together. And there was nothing better than that.

I leaned up, my knees shaking as I pressed my lips against hers.

"I love you," I whispered as I backed away from her.

She smiled down at me and rubbed her thumbs in circles over my temples, mimicking what I was doing to her knees.

"I love you too. Now get in this bed with me," she demanded, moving one hand from my hair to pat the spot behind her.

I laughed and stood up, stumbling around the bed and walking to my side as I watched her crawl under the covers. I did the same, quickly wrapping her in my arms and tangling our legs together as I pulled her against me.

She easily settled against me, one of her legs curling around mine as her arms wound around my waist and she pressed her body completely against mine.

"Thank you for coming out tonight," she whispered, placing a feather light kiss against my collarbone.

I smiled and squeezed her tightly, placing a lingering kiss on her shoulder.

"I already told you I'd do anything for you, Bella. I had fun," I said softly, tangling my fingers in the bottom of her hair.

"Better have had fun," she mumbled, yawning.

I laughed and kissed her neck, rubbing my hands up and down her back.

"Go to sleep, love," I whispered, leaning back slightly to brush my lips against hers. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Wasn't tired before," she mumbled, kissing me once more before burying her nose in my chest.

"I'm just that good."

She snorted and I dug my fingertips into her sides, grinning evilly as she jumped and pushed on my chest.

"That wasn't fair," I mumbled into her ear, my hand poised over her rib cage.

She smiled lazily up at me, reaching up with one hand to place it on my cheek and run her thumb down the bridge of my nose.

"Always so easy to get you riled up," she said quietly, her voice amused and dream-like.

I clucked my tongue and rested my hand back on her waist, leaning down to kiss her softly.

"Sleep, Bella," I whispered, softly beginning to massage her waist. "I'll see you in the morning."

She hummed and curled against me again, her hand still on my cheek as she rested her cheek against my chest. I moved my hand from her waist, rubbing her back as I listened to her breathing even out a few minutes later.

When I was sure that she was asleep, I finally relaxed against the pillow and rested my chin gently on the top of her head, my hand still rubbing her back.

The night hadn't started out being anywhere near perfect, but the ending…

Oh, the ending of the night was more than worth all of the shit that had happened earlier.

I smiled to myself and buried my nose in her hair, squeezing her against me as I felt myself drifting off into sleep.

~*~

**I adore you guys. I can't say it enough. The people on lion_lamb, The Fix, the IMDb boards and everywhere else that has me as a recommendation; you guys are amazing.**

**Everyone that reviews, has this story on alert and everything else out there, you are equally as amazing and I adore you just as much.**

**I'll also be posting an outtake from this chapter… Alternate ending, I guess you could say.**

**I didn't get to respond to everyone's review, but I did try! So I'm sorry if I didn't but real life got in the way this week and Stay took a backseat to it.**

**Okay, so… I'm done rambling. You guys are amazing. I love and adore you. Be sure to go check out the outtake; I have a hunch that you're all going to enjoy it. Until next update!**


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**I have no words to describe how absolutely fucking amazing all of you actually are. You guys have quite possibly made my entire damn life with all the reviews and alerts and everything else and I absolutely adore you. Beyond words.**

**Thanks for getting me to almost 600 reviews, too! That's mind blowing and thank you so much!**

**I'm going to stop babbling now.**

**My normal list of shout-outs: Angie, my dear friend, you're amazing and I can't ever thank you enough for putting up with me. Everyone at lion_lamb, Rob's IMDb boards, The Fix, and everywhere else; I love you guys more than I can possibly express.**

**One more thing; Bella will not end up pregnant.**

**Enjoy this chapter!**

~*~

***Bella***

I jumped when I heard the alarm go off the next morning and moaned unhappily, burying my face into Edward's chest as he chuckled and ran his hands over my bare back.

One of my eyes popped open and I grinned, snuggling into him as he moved one hand from my back to reach behind him and slap at the alarm clock to shut it off.

I'd never felt more relaxed and gloriously _used_ before. And I'd never felt more wanted by someone else than I had last night.

The way his hands were all over me, his mouth eagerly kissing my skin, the way his body felt against mine and most importantly, the way he felt when he was inside of me.

I'd been whole, completely filled to the brim with emotions I'd never felt before and really fucking happy that I could cause him to lose the control he always seemed to have in a very firm grip.

And those stairs… oh, those stairs. I would build my own damn shrine to them on the bottom step if Edward wouldn't think I'd officially lost my mind when he saw it.

Who knew they'd be useful for more than accessing the second floor?

It was impossible to describe the way it felt knowing that he couldn't wait, either. We couldn't even make it up to the bedroom and I wouldn't change that for anything in the world.

And while I should've felt awkward right now – I should've been embarrassed about the way I'd thrown myself at him and about the way I'd demanded him to take me home – I didn't. It wasn't awkward and it wasn't weird; it was natural.

I was waking up to the man I was completely head over heels in love with the morning after we'd first been together and feeling nothing but absolute bliss.

"Morning, love," he whispered into my ear, his arms wrapping around me again as he pulled me even closer to him.

I pulled my other arm out from underneath us and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, kissing his collarbone and tangling my legs with his.

"Morning."

"Are you feeling okay? Everything is in perfect working condition? No bodily injuries? Bruises?"

"Why in the hell would there be bruises?" I mumbled, rolling my eyes.

"Stairs," was all he said as he nuzzled his nose into my neck.

"What about them?"

I couldn't hide the smile on my face or in my voice even as I buried my nose into his chest.

God, I loved those fucking stairs.

"You deserve more than the stairs."

"I happen to be quite in love with those stairs," I said, tipping my head back to look into his eyes.

He raised an eyebrow at me, reaching up with one hand to brush hair off of my forehead before returning it to around my waist.

"Really?"

I grinned at him, nodding. "I want to find the inventor of the stairs and marry them."

He laughed, leaning down and gently pressing his lips against mine.

"You'd be a bigamist," he said softly as he pulled away.

My heart jumped in my chest, but I beat it back down as I threaded my fingers in his hair.

As much as I wanted to, I wasn't going to let myself get my hopes up. It didn't necessarily mean anything for _our _future. It could've been an observation of some sort. He'd never mentioned that he'd be the one married to me.

"Why's that?" I asked innocently, doing my best to calm my racing heart.

He brushed his lips over mine again before moving onto my jaw and placing a line of kisses there.

"You're it for me, Bella," he whispered once he'd reached my ear again. "There's no one else for me but you."

I had to bite down hard on my bottom lip to keep the hysterically giddy laughter in my throat as I tightened my arms around his neck and pressed myself against him completely.

I'd never been _it_ for anyone before. I hadn't dated many guys in the past, but even still, no one had ever told me that I was _it_ for them.

It made me feel like I was floating. It almost rivaled the way I felt last night.

Almost.

And that was saying something because I'd been pretty sure that nothing in the world could top the way I'd felt last night.

I felt his arms tighten around my waist as he buried his face in my shoulder and I grinned into his chest.

"I love you," I whispered, lazily dragging my fingernails over his shoulders.

"You have no idea," he breathed into my ear, his lips brushing over my neck, "how much I love you."

"Mm, I think I do."

He laughed and pulled back only slightly to look at me again.

"You get out early today, right?"

I nodded, stretching up to kiss his nose. "At four."

"Mind letting me borrow your truck for the day? I've got a few things that I want to get in Queensbury and I don't want to dig out the car."

"Why don't you wait for me to get out of work and I'll go with you?"

"That defeats the whole purpose of giving me something to do while you're not here with me," he smirked, leaning in to kiss me softly. "I need something to distract me."

I laughed and shook my head at him.

"What did you do before?"

"Slept. Ate. Ignored everyone and everything. Talked to you when I could." He nudged his nose against mine and kissed me again. "I'm glad this time was so much different."

I smiled and nodded, moving my hands to tangle them in his hair.

"Me too."

He hummed contentedly, burying his nose back in my neck and running his hands up and down my back again.

"You should shower," he said suddenly, rolling onto his back and breaking our connection as he looked at the alarm clock. "You're gonna be late."

I pursed my lips at him before leaning up slightly to see that I had an hour until I needed to leave.

"Trying to get rid of me?"

I propped myself up on one of my elbows, resting my other hand on his chest and looking down at him. He smiled crookedly at me, reaching up to place one hand on my back.

"Always."

My mouth dropped open and I laughed once incredulously before climbing over him and resting my feet on the floor.

"Well in that case…" I mumbled, starting to stand up.

I screamed, laughing as he grabbed me around the waist and threw me on the foot of the bed before leaning over me with a wide grin on his face.

"Do you really think I want to get rid of you?" he laughed, leaning down and kissing me once.

"You said it!" I laughed, reaching up to place my hands on his neck.

He kissed each of my cheeks before leaning up again.

"I want to spend," he dipped his head down to kiss my forehead, "the rest," he kissed the tip of my nose, "of my damn," he kissed my chin, "life with you," he whispered before finally kissing my lips. "I never want to remember what life is like without you."

I smiled lazily up at him, warmth spreading all over my body as I rubbed my thumbs over his jaw line and bit my bottom lip.

"Got it?" he demanded, laughing and pushing hair off of my forehead.

"I got it," I said quietly, smiling like an idiot.

"Good," he said simply before grabbing one of my hands and pulling me with him as he got up. "Shower with me, love. I'm suddenly very unwilling to leave your side."

I laughed and followed him into the bathroom, hanging behind him as he pulled me along to watch the way the muscles in his back rippled under his skin as he walked.

"You keep doing that and you're definitely going to be late to work," he stated as he pulled me into the bathroom and turned to face me.

My face burned and he laughed, stepping over to me and cupping my face in his hands.

"Think it'd be worth it," I managed, glancing down at the part of him that seemed to contradict his easy tone.

He twisted his lips to the side, his hands moving from my face and trailing down my chest before they rested on my breasts.

"I will get you in my bed one day," he said quietly, his voice already husky.

I shrugged one shoulder, reaching in between us and grabbing him in my hand, smiling triumphantly as his hips jerked and his eyes fluttered closed.

"I'm not in any hurry."

His fingertips twitched on my breasts as I slid my hand up before he dropped his hands and quickly grabbed my arm with both of them, stepping away from me.

I stared at him as his eyes opened again, one eyebrow raised and my lips pursed.

And where in the hell did he think he was going? If I had to chase him around this house bare ass naked, I would gladly do so.

My lips twitched up into a smirk at the thought.

That'd be fun.

"You need to get ready for work," he managed through his teeth and I watched as he swallowed hard. "This will be a purely innocent shower."

What the hell kind of fun would _that _be? My highly gorgeous boyfriend was naked, I was naked and there were very obvious parts to both of us that didn't want anything to do with _innocent_ showers.

Or anything else that included the word innocent in their descriptions.

"I'm sure the boss won't mind if I'm a few minutes late."

He rolled his eyes, breathing out a laugh as he shook his head and lightened the hold he had on my arm.

"I want to do this right with you, Bella," he said softly, finally stepping up to me again and brushing the back of one hand gently over my cheek. "You deserve more than the stairs or the shower."

"_What_ did I tell you about the stairs? I love the stairs. I'm probably gonna love the shower a whole hell of a lot more, too. In fact, if you want to christen the rest of the damn house, I'd be perfectly okay with that."

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, laughing at me.

"I'm not going to…"

"Edward," I said sternly, shaking my arm out of his other hand and reaching up to fist my hand tightly into his hair, "it doesn't matter where we are in this house. As long as I'm with you, I'm more than perfectly happy with it. The stairs, the shower, the dining room table… I don't care!"

He raised an eyebrow at me.

"The dining room table?"

I smirked and shrugged one shoulder, loosening the grip I had on his hair.

"Passing thought. And you do realize," I started, quickly pressing myself against him before he could do anything to stop it, "that the longer you stand here arguing with me over it, the more time we're wasting, right?"

I ran my other hand up his thigh and grinned when I heard his low moan.

"The later I'll be," I whispered, stepping up on my toes to nip at his ear.

"You," he breathed, his hands reaching up and gripping my waist tightly, "don't play fair."

I grinned and shook my head, opening my mouth against his neck and swirling my tongue on his skin.

"Complaining?"

And before I had any time to react, he'd wrapped his arms around my waist, lifted me off the floor and stepped over the ledge to get us into the bathtub.

He reached down, flicked on the hot water and the shower at the same time. I screamed, turning us around so that his back faced the first blast of cold water that rained down on us and was instantly pressed against the back of the wall as I did so.

"Never," he breathed before he planted his mouth on mine.

Oh, yeah. Every damn day should start out like this.

~*~

"You have to go inside," he laughed.

I merely pulled his mouth against mine again, lazily dragging my lips over his as I grunted twice in disagreement and ran my tongue across his bottom lip. His hands were on my neck as he tilted his head to the side, granting me the access to his mouth that I always craved.

I stroked his tongue with mine and placed my hands on the top of his head, internally cursing the bandana I'd helped tie there about ten minutes ago.

We'd been spotted in Saratoga – far away from our little quiet bubble in Lake George – and he didn't want to have a repeat of the Price Chopper incident.

And while that was a very smart move on his part, my hands were absolutely _itching_ to be in his hair right at this very moment.

"Bella," he breathed, backing away from me. "You're gonna be late."

I shrugged, reaching forward to wrap my arms around his neck and pull his lips to mine yet again.

"It'll be worth it," I mumbled against his lips.

He moaned quietly and quickly opened his mouth to mine, our tongues lazily twisting together as he moved closer to me and traced my jaw line with his thumbs.

"Okay, you need to go," he said abruptly, moving away from me and flattening himself against the driver door.

I huffed at him, pursing my lips and narrowing my eyes at him.

"I want you out at four on the dot," he stated, giving in a little and leaning over to kiss me again before plastering himself back to the door.

This was ridiculous.

You'd think that he hadn't had me pressed up against the shower wall forty-five minutes ago, moaning and grunting in the most delicious way against my shoulder blades as he took me.

"Fine," I huffed, snatching my purse from the floorboards and pushing open the door.

"Hey!"

I turned as I stepped out of the truck, my lips pursed at him again as I swung my purse over my shoulder and placed one hand on the side of the door.

"Yes?" I asked innocently, tilting my head at him.

He was across the seat, his hands on my face and his urgent lips on mine before I could say or do anything more.

"It's not that I want you to go," he whispered between kisses as he tangled his fingers into my hair, "I just want you to be able to come back to me as soon as possible."

If I hadn't been holding onto the door so tightly, it was altogether possible that my knees would've given out. If I thought his confession this morning had been enough to turn me into nothing but an incoherent pile of mush, I wasn't quite sure what _this_ was.

I did know that it was fucking _perfect_, though.

"Mm," I mumbled, sucking his top lip into my mouth and leaning into him again.

"Stop it," he laughed, moving his hands to my waist and gently pushing me back from him.

"You're infuriating!" I exclaimed, huffing yet again.

He laughed and nodded.

"Yeah, but I love you."

I grinned and quickly kissed him once more before stepping back and holding my hands up in front of me as he started to push me away again.

"I love you too."

"I'll be here at four," he smiled.

"I'll be waiting."

He climbed out of the truck and walked over to me, kissing me once again before backing away from me and closing the passenger side door he'd just climbed out of.

"Have a good day."

He winked at me as he rounded the back of the truck and I backed up even further, watching as he climbed into the driver's side and pulled out of the parking lot. I waved at him as he drove off down the road and bit my bottom lip to keep the stupid smile at bay before turning on my heel and walking up the pathway to the store.

I pushed through the door, letting it slam behind me as I walked in and let my purse fall down my arm and onto the floor as I shrugged out of my coat.

"Good morning, Bella," Jessica all but snarled from her position at the front desk. "You're late."

I looked over at her, raising an eyebrow as I hung my coat on the old fashioned coat rack that once belonged to my grandmother before grabbing my purse again.

So she wasn't even going to wait for the work day to really start before she ripped into me.

Well, she wasn't going to get to me. Not this morning; not after the night and the morning that I'd had with Edward. Nothing was going to bring me down and her trivial little comments that really meant nothing to me now were not going to affect me.

"A few minutes," I said easily, shrugging my shoulders.

I wasn't even going to mention how she so often showed up a few _hours_ late to work. I had no room in my mind to start a pointless argument that she'd always find a way to talk herself out of no matter what I said.

"Did you have a nice night?" she sneered, her eyes glued to the computer screen in front of her and her hand firmly on the little black mouse attached to it.

I couldn't fight the grin as I nodded, but did fight the urge to start dancing around the room with my tongue sticking out at her.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Thanks for asking," I chirped brightly as I walked over to the counter and grabbed the stack of papers that I hadn't been able to get through yesterday.

"You're on the fucking _internet_, you mindless twit."

I grit my teeth together as my eyes narrowed and my fingers tensed on the papers, momentarily blocking out the surge of panic that ran down my spine.

I knew this was going to happen. I couldn't go anywhere with my famous boyfriend without expecting someone to see us and take pictures – especially when we all but invited all of the attention our way.

He'd said that he didn't want to wear a hat and we hadn't exactly been discreet about being together; this was something we both knew was going to happen last night and he'd _wanted_ to be seen with me.

We weren't in our bubble anymore and it was because we'd both wanted it that way.

I sucked in a deep breath as I rounded the counter and started flipping through more papers to find the shipment report I'd need to take care of before I started my vacation.

And just the thought of having the entire week away from her and this place shoved Jessica's insult to the back of my mind as I smiled brightly at nothing.

"Bound to happen," I said easily, finding the paper I needed and placing it on the stack I held in my arms. "Not a big deal."

"Are you _kidding_ me? This is a big fucking deal!" she screeched. "The entire world knows that the plainest person alive is dating Edward Cullen! Don't you _know_ that this won't last, Bella?"

I bit down on my tongue, refusing to see the half truths in her brutal tone as I fought to keep my good mood and thoughts intact.

"You know, I really wish you'd stop making assumptions." My tone was light as I turned to her and as my purse swung from the crook of my arm, I had the brief thought of hitting her over the head with it. "You know nothing."

"I know enough! Do you know that he dumped his last girlfriend because she wouldn't put out? And I _know_," she scoffed, rolling her eyes and turning to me, "that you're not giving it up."

I wanted to snort and laugh at her but just shook my head and smiled peacefully.

Really, there was no getting mad at that.

"That's none of your business so I'd thank you to stop thinking about my sex life."

It was comical the way her mouth dropped open and her face turned red as she shook her head furiously from side to side and brought her hands up to ward me off as if I were approaching her.

"And I'd also thank you to stop drooling over my boyfriend." I nodded at the computer screen over her shoulder, wincing slightly as I saw the grainy cell phone picture of me pressed tightly against Edward while we danced. "He's not interested."

"Hell of a lot you know," she sputtered, still shaking her head and waving her hands out in front of her.

I really wish she'd stop doing that. I wasn't moving any closer to her than I needed to be and all she was doing was successfully making herself out to be a very big ass.

"Oh, that's right," I said, dramatically tilting my head to the side and bringing one finger up to the corner of my mouth as I looked back at her, "your five second conversation with him a while ago makes you soul mates, right?" I laughed and shook my head, dropping my arm to my side again. "I don't think I'm the one being delusional."

"You know _nothing_," she spat, finally dropping her arms into her lap and glaring at me. "You _are_ nothing to him! He'll use you for whatever it is that he could _possibly_ want from you and then he'll throw you out just like the others."

I swallowed hard against the words that rang mostly true in the back of my head and clenched my teeth together as my eyes narrowed.

I knew nothing of the so-called _others_ she was spewing on about. For the sake of my sanity, whenever he'd been mentioned on some show or in a gossip magazine about dating some other Hollywood starlet, I'd been quick to change the channel or turn the page and do my best to forget about it.

He'd been my neighbor and nothing more; there had been no need to torture myself even further by trying to compare to the beautiful women he may or may not have been with at the time.

"If you think that's so true," I started, my voice low, "then why are you so hell bent on being with him?"

"Do you _know_ how famous I'm going to be when people see me on his arm out in California? I'll be the next big thing."

My gaze was quickly veiled in red as my fingers twitched on the stack of papers I still held tightly in my hands.

I had never had the urge to lunge across the small space separating us to attempt choking her with my bare hands more than I had in this moment.

I wouldn't have liked it any better if she'd said something along the lines of liking him for _him_, but at least it would've been a valid reason.

Not something incredibly stupid and shallow based on his celebrity status for whatever reason she seemed to think that she needed to capitalize on.

_No one _should be used for something trivial and heartless like that.

"Until he gets tired of you," I managed through my teeth.

"The way that he'll eventually get tired of _you_?"

I sucked in another deep breath and concentrated on relaxing my fingers on the stack of papers I had in a death grip.

I didn't want to go to jail anytime soon. And if I was going to end up going to jail for something, I'd make damn sure that it wasn't over Jessica Stanley.

"Don't you know that he dated Tanya fucking Holden? _Golden Holden_?" she asked haughtily, raising an eyebrow at me. "You are absolutely _nothing_ compared to that woman."

I felt my heart sink and swallowed hard.

Tanya Holden was the woman every boy, man and probably a good amount of other women dreamed about nightly. She was tall, strawberry blonde and had the most unusual amber colored eyes than anyone I'd ever seen all wrapped up with a perfect body and one of those annoying, perfect laughs and gorgeous mannerisms.

She was the epitome of perfection and the complete opposite of me. Everything she touched, every movie she starred in and everyone she dated immediately shot to fame; hence the nickname _Golden Holden_. There was no going wrong when she was linked to something or someone.

Maybe this was why I should've paid a little closer attention to who he was dating when he disappeared back to California.

What the hell did he want with me when he could be with women like _her_?

"Would you like to see what you look like when you're standing next to him?" she asked innocently, her voice laced with malice as she quickly turned back to the computer without waiting for an answer from me.

I shouldn't look. I shouldn't do it. Because now, no matter what had happened in the past twenty-four hours and how I'd felt walking through that door a few minutes ago, all I was going to see was a pile of shit that resembled me and the gorgeous man that is Edward.

But I found myself inching closer to the back of her chair, looking over her shoulder as she scrolled through the pictures of Edward and I dancing together last night.

My stomach turned when I saw one picture that must've been taken when we were dancing to _Lollipop_. I was straddling one of his legs, his hand was on my ass and our eyes were locked on each other.

I would've _adored_ that picture if Jessica hadn't opened her damn mouth and made me realize how plain and completely wrong I really was for him.

"Do you _see_ it now, Bella? Compared to Tanya, you are nothing. You'll never be anything but a convenient prop to keep her spot warm."

"What?"

"They break up and make up more than any celebrity couple in the history of Hollywood. They'll be back together before he steps foot off of the plane in California."

No. _No_. Edward wouldn't do that to me. He wouldn't say the things he'd said this morning about wanting to spend the rest of his life with me if he didn't really mean it.

_He wasn't that person_.

Briefly closing my eyes, I kept taking deep breaths in through my nose before opening them again and stepping back from the chair.

He loves me. I _know_ he loves me. Things don't feel the way they felt last night or this morning if there aren't real feelings involved on both parts.

She wasn't going to make me doubt that again. Jessica Stanley was never going to make me doubt what was so obviously real between us ever again.

And as I stared hard at her when she turned around, the top of her head started to point up and turn black and her skin started to turn yellow.

My lips twitched into a small smile when I saw brown spots starting to form on her now completely yellow cheeks and I tilted my head at her.

"What are you smiling at?" she snapped, her hand coming up to brush what I assumed was actually hair off of her spotted yellow face.

And just like that, my world was right again. Jessica was turning into a banana and everything she'd already said was slowly beginning to lose its meaning.

"Nothing," I chirped, my shoulders suddenly feeling a hell of a lot lighter as the feelings I'd had this morning came rushing back to me. "Nothing at all."

"You know that I'm right, don't you? You know that I'm speaking the truth!"

"Believe whatever you want to, Jess," I laughed as I walked by her and shook my head. "I know what's going on in my relationship."

"You only think that you do!"

I reached the bottom of the stairs and spared one more glance at her, snorting and hiding my face in my free hand as I saw an actual banana sitting in the chair behind the counter.

"_What_ is so damn funny?" she exclaimed, slamming her hands onto the counter.

That only made me laugh harder as I clutched the railing of the stairs to keep from falling over.

Bananas didn't have _hands_. They didn't talk, either, but there it was; yellow, brown and annoyed right behind me.

"Nothing," I waved her off, gasping for breath as I stumbled up the first few steps.

"I don't know how you can laugh at a time like this! I'm making perfect sense!"

I wheezed out another laugh and gripped the railing once again, shaking my head as I forced myself up the stairs.

Bananas didn't make sense, either.

"Sure you are," I laughed, finally making my way to the top of the stairs. "I'll be down in a few minutes."

I heard her let out an aggravated screech and only laughed a little harder as I closed my office door behind me and threw my purse into the chair next to me.

Ah, yes, I liked the banana thing a _lot_. And I was going to make damn sure that Edward knew how much I appreciated him teaching me this little tactic when we got home.

~*~

By the time four o'clock rolled around, I was still walking around the store, humming as I helped people find the books they were looking for while Jessica sat up at the front counter, fuming.

She'd even gone so far as to pull up different gossip sites that had our pictures plastered all over them and watch me closely as I walked by her to see my reaction.

It hadn't been hard to turn her into a banana again when I needed to and when I merely laughed at her, her yellow face had turned red and she'd quite literally growled before turning back to the screen and finding something else to do.

"I'm leaving!" she announced when the last customer had walked out of the front door, quickly grabbing her purse and walking to the coat rack. "And I'm taking tomorrow off."

"You remember our agreement?" I asked easily as I pulled the cash drawer from the register.

She shoved her arms into her coat before hastily shoving her purse high up on her shoulder as she turned to me.

"Yes, I remember. And when that premiere finally comes around, I'll be able to prove to you how wrong you are about Edward."

I merely nodded, collecting the signed credit card slips and waving her off.

"Sure, Jess. Have a nice night and I'll see you in a week."

She stomped her foot, turned on her heel and all but flew out the door. I grinned and shrugged a shoulder before slamming the register drawer and walking up the stairs.

When everything was counted and set, I walked back down the stairs with my purse in my hand and grabbed my coat. Getting myself situated, I set the alarm for the night and walked outside, locking the door behind me and smiling brightly when I saw the tail end of my truck poking out from the side of the building.

He was here. He was _waiting_ for me.

I quickly hugged myself before practically running down the walkway, abruptly stopping when I saw Jessica pressed up against him as he leaned against the front of the truck, his hands and back pressed up against it with his face turned away from her.

Pursing my lips and rolling my eyes, I sighed heavily and shook my head.

I couldn't even get mad at her; I just felt horribly sad for her. She was making a fool out of herself.

"Jess, is there something that you need?" I asked, walking up behind her and placing a hand on her shoulder.

She looked over at me and smiled innocently, shrugging my hand off and quickly turning back to press a kiss against Edward's cheek.

"No, I think we're about done here."

My eyes narrowed as she flounced off to her car and climbed in. I watched as she backed out of the parking lot, waving flirtatiously at Edward before disappearing down the road.

I turned to him and raised an eyebrow.

"She just… I didn't… Bella, really…" he stuttered, his hands flailing wildly around him as he pointed in five different directions at once.

I wasn't quite sure how he'd managed to do that.

"Edward," I said calmly, forcing myself to keep a straight face.

It wasn't often that he stumbled over his words this much. It was rather amusing to know that despite what I'd always thought, he wasn't completely perfect.

And I loved him all the more for it.

"She just came out… and then she was… _there_," he pointed to his chest, looking helplessly at me as his arms fell to his sides. "I didn't… I wasn't…"

"She's been a massive bitch all day," I interrupted, laughing as I finished walking up to him and wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my cheek on his chest. "It's okay."

"What'd she do?" he demanded, grabbing my shoulders and gently pushing me back.

"I handled it," I said proudly, keeping my hands on his waist and smiling brightly at him. "Bananas."

He stared at me for a few moments before laughing and pulling me against him, rocking us from side to side as he rested his cheek on the top of my head.

"I love you," he laughed, his hands tangling into my hair.

"I love you too." I backed away from him slowly before reaching up and cupping his face in my hands. "Let's go home."


	21. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**So… fun fucking chapter to write, I must say.**

**You're all still just as fucking amazing as you always have been. I love each and every one of you. In fact, I kind of want to hug you.**

**I'm on a hugging thing lately. Always wanting to hug on Rob…**

**Anyway…**

**I'm glad that everyone found the banana thing amusing! I love that some of you are even using it in real life! That's just fucking awesome to me.**

**Okay, it's late and I'm done.**

**Enjoy!**

~*~

***Edward***

I'd been walking out of the Aviation Mall a few hours after dropping Bella off at work with an insane amount of bags in my hands when my cell phone started vibrating in my pocket.

I'd foolishly turned it on for I don't know _what_ reason and had been greeted with somewhere around a hundred voicemails from Jeannie, screeching on the other end and demanding that I call her back as soon as humanly possible in the six or so that I'd actually listened to.

I didn't even want to attempt looking in my email. I might never make it out alive.

I leisurely walked to the truck, staring down at my cell phone once I'd managed to finagle it from my pocket as I decided whether or not I should answer it upon seeing Jeannie's name lighting up the wide screen.

It wasn't going to lead to anything good. When she screeched and demanded that I answer my phone or call her back during a voicemail, it _never_ meant anything good.

And I could only assume that pictures had been taken last night while I was out with Bella, causing an uproar in poor Jeannie's office and making her choke down at least six _Tums_ every half hour.

I was expecting it. I knew it was going to happen. Bella knew it was going to happen; we'd both been well aware of what we were getting in to when I said that I'd go out without my hat.

I wanted to talk to her before I talked to Jeannie about any of this. I needed to make sure that she was okay with all of this; that she was okay and that people hadn't been bothering her all day while she was at work.

Just because she'd _said_ that she was okay with all of it, it didn't mean that she really was. And from the way she'd been reacting when it was merely Jessica dragging our relationship through the shredder, I wasn't sure what she'd be like when I picked her up from work.

From the little I'd managed to decipher from Jeannie's screeching, it was somewhere around six different gossip magazines and double the amount of internet sites that wanted to know who she was and what was going on between us.

Sighing heavily, I dumped all of my packages into the passenger side of the truck before accepting my fate, pushing the little green button and pressing the phone against my ear.

"Hi, Jeannie," I greeted her in my best imitation of someone extremely innocent.

It might buy me a little time.

"Do you have _any_ idea how many times I've threatened to drop your ass today?" she screamed.

Then again, maybe not.

I could hear her munching on what I only assumed was a _Tums_ tablet and sighed as I slammed the passenger door shut and walked around the front of the truck to slide into the driver's seat.

"I have a vague idea."

"Oh, I don't think you do," she snorted. "You told me a _week ago_ that you weren't dating anyone and _now_ there are _pictures_ of you with some… some… _girl_ dancing in a club in Saratoga!"

I heard her slam something down on what I assumed was her desk and leaned forward to rest my forehead on the steering wheel and stare at the outdated gauges as I closed the truck door.

"Things changed."

"You need to keep me _informed_, Edward! It's madness over here! My phone hasn't been quiet all day! And why haven't you returned any of my phone calls?"

"I haven't been in service until now. I don't get any reception up at my house."

"Then you need to move!"

I rolled my eyes.

"I'm not moving."

"Well you need to do something differently! I can't keep doing this, Edward!"

"Jeannie, you need to calm down."

"And you need to get your ass back to L.A. so that we can figure out what the hell we're going to do about this!"

She had a better chance of seeing pigs fly by her office windows than she did of getting me on a plane back to California anytime before the holidays were over.

"I can tell you what we're going to do," I sighed as I sat up straight and tapped the brim of the hat. "I'm going to go home, talk to Bella and then I'll call you back."

"I've heard that before!" she screeched and I heard her popping open her ever-faithful bottle of _Tums_.

She really did need a very long vacation. Maybe I'd buy her the plane tickets for Christmas. It was probably the least that I could do after making her stomach lining all but disappear.

"You need to give me something that I can tell people _now_ until we can get all of this sorted out."

"Jeannie, there's nothing to sort out. I'm in love with her and I don't give a fuck who knows about it."

"Something that you should've _told me_ already, Edward! Why do you do this to me?" she whined, sighing heavily. "I'm good to you, aren't I? I don't ask too much of you or make you do anything that you don't want to do, do I?"

Guilt washed over me and I shifted uncomfortably in the seat, sliding down a little further and crossing my free arm over my chest.

"No, Jeannie, you don't."

"Then why do you do this to me every damn time you start dating someone new? How long will this last, Edward? She lives in New York and you're in California most of the time."

My nostrils flared and I glared out at the hood of the red Neon sitting in front of me, pressing my lips together and doing my best to remember that Jeannie was only trying to do her job.

"We're both very much aware of that," I said quietly. "And it's going to last a hell of a long time."

"Like what's-her-name?"

I rolled my eyes, pushing the hat off of my head and dragging my fingertips over the bandana covering my hair.

"Her name was Kate and she was better off as a friend."

"Edward," Jeannie sighed heavily, "you've said that about more than half of the girls you've dated while I've known you. Why do you think that this one will last?"

"Because it's _more_ than that!" I exclaimed, sitting up in the seat and slamming my hand on the steering wheel. "Jeannie, this girl is… she's _everything_."

"I can't imagine that you've known her that long to really believe that."

"Aren't you supposed to be supportive?" I growled, wrapping my fingers tightly around the steering wheel.

"I've seen this happen to too many of my clients before, Edward, and I just want to make sure that I'm actually prepared for something that you're getting involved in."

"I'm telling you," I said quietly, fighting the urge to throw the phone out the window, "this is the real thing."

I heard her sigh and then heard the _Tums_ bottle rattle before I heard her munching on another tablet.

"You really love her?" she finally asked.

"I really love her."

"This isn't just some bullshit fling that you need to get out of your system before coming home?"

"Jeannie," I sighed heavily, twisting my hand around the steering wheel before dropping it into my lap.

"I want to get the truth out to the credible magazines and sites, Edward, so you need to be sure that this is real. I'm not going to waste this much time and effort into putting an entire story out there if this is going to be over within the week."

"This is as real as it gets."

"And do you _promise_ to call me back once you've talked to this girl?"

"Her name is Bella and yes, I promise to call you back."

She sighed heavily and I heard her teeth crunch down on another tablet.

"I'll be in my office until six. If it takes longer than that, call me on my cell phone."

"I will."

"And Edward?"

I sighed, leaning forward and resting my forehead against the steering wheel again.

"Yes?"

"She knows what this means for her, doesn't she?"

God, I hoped so.

"Yes, she does."

"You better make _damn sure_ she knows _all_ of what it entails, Edward. If you're really in love with her, you better make sure she's well informed."

"She _knows_."

"I hope you're right."

"I'll call you later, Jeannie," I mumbled, sitting back in the seat again and sighing at the Neon.

"One more thing."

I barely resisted the urge to slam my head against the dashboard.

"Yes?"

"I _am_ rooting for you and keeping your best interest at heart."

I relaxed and took a deep breath, briefly closing my eyes as I placed my free hand on the top of my head.

"I know, Jeannie."

"Call me back as soon as you can. I want to get this out before my phone blows up."

"I will."

"Goodbye, Edward."

"Bye," I mumbled, shaking my head and pressing the red button on the phone before throwing it in one of the many bags at my side.

I spent the entire ride to my house thinking about how to bring this up to Bella easily before finally figuring out that there really was no easy way.

She could've already known by that point, anyway. She could've had people swarming her and asking for details while I wasted time in the mall and talked to Jeannie on the phone. She could've been having one of the worst days because of who I was to the rest of the world and it was something that I couldn't stop now.

Driving by the bookstore with its overly full parking lot made me cringe and tighten my hands around the steering wheel, fighting the urge to pull onto the side of the road, walk in there and demand that she come home with me _now_.

Just to protect her for a little while longer; keep her out of the spotlight and safe in my arms for just one more day.

Shaking my head, I drove up our street and parked the truck in her driveway before grabbing the bags and lugging them across the street.

I stored all of my packages in the bedroom closet, sliding the door closed before walking back downstairs and into the living room to flop on the couch and stare at the silent television. I untied the bandana and flung it next to me, settling down on the couch and resting my hands on my stomach.

I sat there for the rest of the day, only realizing what time it was when the light through the window started to fade and I had enough common sense to look at the clock on the DVD player.

What if she _couldn't_ handle all of this? What if she'd just been putting on a brave face for me? What if when I picked her up, she decided that she was going to call it quits with me?

My heart twisted painfully in my chest as I shrugged my jacket back on and grabbed her keys from the table.

Could I live without her at this point? Could I really let her go when I'd already banked on the rest of my life with her? Could I _really_ learn to live without her?

I swallowed hard and walked out of the house, jogging across the street and hopping into her truck.

No. I couldn't live without her now. She'd become a part of me that I couldn't think about being without.

Leaving her to go to Washington at the beginning of next week would be hard enough, but losing her completely might kill me.

Taking a deep breath, I backed out of the driveway and down to the store, parking in the mostly empty lot and drumming my hands on the steering wheel.

I stared at the door, anxiously waiting for it to open before I hopped out of the truck and paced around it, running a hand through my hair.

I couldn't just sit there and wait patiently. There were so many scenarios running through my mind of how she'd walk out of the building that if I stayed in one spot, I'd probably just go insane.

When I heard the door open, I looked up and sighed heavily when I saw a regular customer walk out, a plain white bag swinging from one of her hands.

The blonde kept her eyes on me, one side of her mouth quirked up into a smirk as she walked by and got into the metallic blue Honda Civic I hadn't noticed before.

Shaking my head and reaching up to tap my fingertips against my forehead, I continued to force even breaths in and out of my mouth as I heard her pull out.

That could've been so much worse.

Maybe it had been inside. I wasn't in there to see how her interaction had gone with Bella. Maybe she'd caused a scene in there and Bella was on the edge of hysterics right now.

I should've never let this happen. I should've never let myself be with her this way. I never should've let myself cause someone as beautiful and perfect as her this kind of pain.

She didn't deserve this. She didn't deserve to have to deal with this much shit on a daily basis.

It wasn't fair to her.

It'd kill me to be apart from her, but I wouldn't have her going through this all the damn time if she didn't have to. I wouldn't cause her this much pain if it was avoidable.

My head snapped up again when I heard the door slam closed and I nearly growled when I saw Jessica walking toward me with a rather large grin on her face.

I did _not_ need this right now.

"Hello, Edward," she purred, walking straight up to me and pressing herself against my chest.

I backed up into the truck as far as I could, slapping my hands on the side of it and stretching my neck back and away from her as I looked down.

"Hi," I mumbled.

"So, I was thinking," she started, tilting her head to the side and licking her lips.

Ugh.

"About that premiere…"

"What about it?" I managed, trying to force some sort of hole into the side of the truck with sheer will power so that I could escape her.

Why was this woman such a pain in the ass all the damn time? Didn't she ever get tired of it? Didn't she have anything better to do with her time?

And if Bella walked out right now…

Oh, God.

"You have one coming up soon, don't you? I read about it on the internet."

She reached up to trail one fingertip down my chest and I quickly pushed her hand away, shaking my head down at her.

"Yes, I do," I said quietly, placing my hand back on the side of the truck again. "And I'm going to talk to my agent tonight about our agreement. You'll have all of the information you need before I leave here."

Her grin got that much wider.

"I'm looking forward to it."

"Yeah," I laughed uncomfortably, turning my head away from her and looking out to the woods surrounding the back of the store.

I heard the door slam again and immediately tensed, closing my eyes tightly and wishing that the truck would somehow just swallow me whole.

This could not be happening.

I kept my face turned away, praying beyond _anything_ that Bella could see just how much I hated this. I heard her voice, asking Jessica if she needed something and nearly cringed when Jessica said no and kissed my cheek.

I fought the urge to childishly wipe away the remnants of her sticky lip gloss and was very relieved when I opened my eyes to see her flouncing off to her car and backing out of the parking lot. She waved at me as she drove away and I cringed.

I started babbling when Bella merely raised her eyebrow at me, but I didn't know what else to do. I'd been thinking not even five minutes ago about how I'd leave her to protect her from all the shit that surrounded my lifestyle and now I found myself tripping over my own tongue trying to explain that nothing had happened.

Because God damn it, I didn't _want_ her to leave me. I didn't want to be without her. I _couldn't_.

But then she was calling Jessica a massive bitch, walking over to me and wrapping me in her arms as she laughed a little.

Which didn't really calm my nerves down at _all_. Yes, Jessica was a massive, vindictive bitch but it didn't explain the laughing and I wasn't sure if it was nervous laughter or if she was just trying to cover up what she was really feeling.

And then _bananas_ left her lips and I just stood there, staring at her.

She'd used it. She'd used the trick I'd taught her and it had worked for her. She wasn't hiding any other emotions from me. She really was _okay_.

My heart swelled in my chest and I wrapped my arms around her again, telling her that I loved her and completely forgetting about anything that I might've been thinking about leaving her.

This woman was amazing and she was mine. I wasn't going to fuck with something like that.

We got in the truck and I drove us home, my hand grasped tightly in hers as we pulled into her driveway.

"So," I started as we met at the back of the truck and clasped hands again, "I got a call from my agent."

"Oh yeah?" she asked, looking up at me and brushing hair away from her eyes.

"We're out."

"In a big way," she agreed, nodding.

I looked down at her as we crossed the street and watched her face for any sign of remorse or second thoughts.

When I found none, I untangled my hand from hers and wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her against me as we walked up the porch steps and kissing the side of her head.

"And I need to tell Jeannie something to tell all the papers and sites. So, you really need to tell me now if there are any skeletons in your closet."

She threw her head back and laughed as I unlocked the door, walking in ahead of me and watching as she threw her jacket and purse on the rocking chair.

"I'm not nearly interesting enough to have skeletons in my closet." She kicked off her shoes and walked over to the couch, flopping down onto it and looking over at me. "I do have some questions for you, though."

I raised an eyebrow and toed off my shoes as well, throwing the keys on the table and shedding my coat to rest it on top of hers before joining her.

She leaned against me as I sat down and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders again, resting my cheek on the top of her head and staring at the wall next to her.

I could only imagine what questions she might've needed answered. I didn't even want to think about what Jessica had brought up to her today.

But she wasn't upset. She wasn't crying and she wasn't avoiding me, so it couldn't have really been all that bad.

Right?

"Ask away," I said quietly, absently trailing my hands through her hair.

She took a deep breath and I tensed, closing my eyes tightly and waiting impatiently for what I was sure couldn't be leading anywhere good.

"Tanya Holden."

My breath came out in a _whoosh_ and I smiled as I opened my eyes again, reaching around and wrapping my other arm around her as well, leaning in to bury my nose in her hair and laughing a little.

Ah, yes, Tanya.

"My very good friend Tanya Holden?"

"You dated her," she said timidly, one of her hands reaching up to make nonsensical patterns on my arm.

"For a short while," I agreed, nodding as I rubbed her arm. "We were better off as friends and we've been that way ever since."

"You don't make up and break up every time you see her?"

"God no," I laughed, shaking my head and reaching up with one hand to tip her chin up. "Because we're still close, the media assumes that we're back together each time we go out to lunch or dinner or hang out at a bar. I haven't dated her in over three years and I have no desire to do so again."

I leaned down and gently touched my lips to hers.

"She's probably one of my best friends and you'll meet her one day. There's absolutely no need to worry about her, Bella. I'm in love with you," I whispered.

The smile that lit up her face as she threw her arms around my neck and tackled me to the couch had me laughing as I pulled her down with me. She burrowed her nose into my neck and straddled my lap, gently tapping her fingertips on my chest.

"What does your agent need to know about me?" she finally asked, tilting her head up to rest her chin on my chest and look at me.

"Well," I started, my hands in her hair again as I looked up at the ceiling and twisted my lips to the side. "If you don't want someone really prying into your background just yet – because it will happen eventually, Bella – she'd like to know all the basics. Full name, where you grew up, whom your parents are, where you live… it's something like a questionnaire."

"Should I write all of this down and send it to her?"

"I have to call her back. I wanted to talk to you first and make sure that everything was okay."

She grinned at me, anchoring her hands on either side of my head as she sat up enough to kiss me.

"I don't think I've ever had a day that ended this well."

I laughed and pulled her back down to me, keeping my arms tight around her shoulders as I kissed her again.

"That's _really_ good to know," I whispered as I pulled back from her.

"It's _really_ good to say."

I laughed and pushed hair behind her ear, stroking her cheeks with my thumbs.

"You're in this with me," I said softly, nodding my head and marveling slightly at the whole concept.

She was still here. She'd dealt with Jessica all damn day and had come out of work with fire in her eyes and a laugh on her lips when it was just the two of us.

She was _still here_ with me.

"For the long haul," she confirmed, nodding and grinning at me.

I breathed out a laugh and kissed her again, burying my hands in her hair.

"I'm serious," she mumbled against my lips. "You're not getting rid of me now."

I laughed, shaking my head and pulling away from her again.

"I don't want it any other way."

She smiled and rested her forehead against mine, her eyes slowly closing as she curled her arms around my shoulders.

"You should call her," she said softly, nodding slightly. "You need to get this controlled before people start making their own assumptions."

"Love, they already have," I whispered, nudging my nose against hers and watching as her eyes opened again. "No matter what Jeannie says to any of them, they're going to make their own conclusions about you. About us."

I watched as she folded her bottom lip into her mouth, her teeth gently gnawing on it.

"It's going to be hurtful." I swallowed hard and moved one hand from her hair to cup her cheek. "And it's going to be really hard, Bella. They're going to dig up as much as they can and use it against you and they won't feel any remorse for it. They'll follow you with cameras and questions and they're going to make your life a living hell."

I swallowed hard again and kept my eyes on hers.

"And if I could keep you from that… if you _want_ me to keep you from that then tell me now. I can…"

She cut me off, her mouth forcefully pressing against mine and her hands unwrapping from my shoulders to wind roughly in my hair.

"What did I just tell you?" she asked, backing away from me and pursing her lips. "The long haul, Edward. That means I'm not going anywhere."

"I just want you to be aware of what could happen; what _will_ happen once Jeannie confirms all of it."

"I already knew it. You told me before. My life won't be simple or quiet or any other boring adjective you can come up with and I _know_ this." She moved her hands from my hair and placed them on my cheeks, squishing them together and causing me to laugh. "But I don't care. If that's what I have to deal with in order to be with you, then _I don't care_."

"You really love me, huh?"

I was surprised that she understood me as she tilted her head back and forth and twisted her lips to the side.

"Maybe just a little."

My mouth tried dropping open, but seeing as how she still had my cheeks clasped in her hands, the intended effect didn't work all that well. Instead, I tightened my arms around her and flipped us both onto the floor. She landed on her back with me on top of her and I watched her closely to make sure that I hadn't hurt her and that she was breathing all right through her laughter.

I hadn't and she was, her legs coming up to wrap around my waist as she finally let go of my face and wiggled around underneath me.

"If you really need to question that, then maybe I haven't been doing a very good job of showing you just how much," she stated, quirking an eyebrow at me.

My heart fell.

No. She wasn't allowed to think like that. That wasn't what I'd meant by that at all.

"No, Bella, I didn't mean it like that…" I started, shaking my head fiercely.

I really was just cramming my foot into my mouth today, wasn't I? I'd need a damn shoehorn to get it out of there if I kept this up.

"Oh, would you just relax?" she laughed, gently slapping at my chest as she continued to wiggle underneath me. "Let me up. I need to go do something."

"Bella," I said helplessly, feeling her legs slide down my hips to land on the floor.

It didn't make a damn bit of difference if she'd told me to relax. Relaxing was not an option when she was slapping at my chest and trying to wiggle away from me.

"Seriously, Edward, get up," she laughed, pushing on my chest.

Grudgingly, I moved off of her and stood up, holding my hand out to her and helping her get up from the floor. She bounced up on her toes, kissing my cheek noisily before flouncing out of the room and up the stairs.

I plopped back onto the couch and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees and my chin in my hands as I stared at the visible part of the stairs from the living room doorway.

Great. Now I'd just chased her away.

And this day had started out so great…

I sighed heavily and looked over, peering out of the windows when I heard a car coming up the road.

I stood up, tilting my head as I saw a police car pull into Bella's driveway.

Maybe they were just turning around. We were pretty much the last houses on this road and Bella's driveway was most definitely one of the biggest.

But then the tall, thin and slightly menacing police officer got out of the cruiser, all but sprinting to her front door and all the panic at chasing her away from me vanished as new panic replaced it.

Something could've happened to the store. Someone could've tried breaking in or had succeeded in it and everything she'd worked so hard for was gone.

And if they did it because of me…

I felt sick.

"Bella!" I yelled, quickly walking over to the bottom of the stairs. "Bella, there's…"

"Don't you _dare_ come up here, Edward Cullen!" she threatened.

"But there's…"

"No! I'll be down in just a minute!"

"There's a police officer at your house!" I blurted out, huffing slightly.

She was quiet and I heard her hasty footsteps as she appeared at the top of the stairs in nothing but a black corset and a pair of matching underwear.

Oh. Holy. _Fuck_.

All thoughts of worry and her store being burglarized vanished from my mind in an instant.

"Police officer?" she asked, her voice flat as her eyes darted from me to the direction of the front door.

"Uh…"

I'd lost any and all speaking capabilities. The blood that had once been running through my veins was now settling very nicely in my groin the longer that I stared at her.

"Albany County?" she asked, quickly running down the steps to stand next to me and peek around the corner.

"Uh…"

The running and the bouncing and the proximity and the near nakedness of my apparently very sneaky girlfriend were _not_ helping with the speaking issue I was currently having.

"You're a big damn help!"

I blinked at her and then stepped back, pointing at her outfit and shaking my head.

"Uh…"

She rolled her eyes and waved me off.

She slowly inched her way into the living room, pressing herself against the wall as she neared the windows and only making my mouth water and my jeans get that much tighter around my hips.

She cursed softly and inched her way back to me, slapping at my chest when she reached me before running back up the stairs. I didn't bother trying to disguise the moan that ripped its way out of my throat before falling against the banister and panting.

Yes; panting. Like a damn dog in heat, I was leaning against the banister of my stairs in an effort to stay standing and _panting_ after her.

Even when she came back down the stairs dressed in a pair of jeans and one of my t-shirts a few minutes later, it didn't help the images that were still embedded in my brain.

"I love you, but you need to stop that," she stated, pointing at me before she yanked her hair up in her hands and tied it back. "That police officer is my father."

Immediately, the blood was back in my brain and I was holding onto the banister for a completely different reason as I gaped at her.

"Excuse me?" I managed.

"_Now_ you speak!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air when her hair was safely tied behind her.

"He's your father?"

She nodded, sighing and fisting her hands on her hips as she slowly inched toward the front door.

"And you're apparently going to meet him today."

_Fuck_.


	22. Chapter 22

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**So I finally had my strawberry shortcake the other day.**

**And then I came home and wrote out the majority of this chapter for all of you simply because I fucking love you guys just that much.**

**I thank all of you from the depths of my heart; reading your reviews and getting your alerts is like Christmas to me.**

**Enjoy!**

~*~

***Bella***

I jogged across the street, my coat tightly wrapped around me and zipped up to my neck as I stared holes in the back of my father's head while he stood on my front porch, pounding on the door.

I think I could even hear him cursing.

I sighed and shook my head, wiggling around a little bit as I stepped onto my driveway and bit my bottom lip.

Corsets were _not_ comfortable. And I just didn't have enough damn common sense to change out of it before running out of the house to face my next obstacle of the day.

Because God knows Jessica Stanley just hadn't been enough. Nope, my father had to be thrown in there, too.

In all fairness, though, I hadn't really intended on keeping it on for very long.

I'd told Edward to wait for ten minutes before coming over to meet him. It would give me enough time to find out what Charlie wanted and then be able to – hopefully – smoothly transition him into meeting my new boyfriend.

It would also give Edward a few extra minutes to calm down. I hadn't missed the look on his face when he'd seen me at the top of the stairs.

And damn it all to hell if it hadn't sent sparks through my entire body despite the words that had left his mouth.

Shaking my head, I took a deep breath and prepared myself as I passed by the cruiser and made my way toward the front steps.

"Dad!"

He jumped and turned around, his eyes narrowed as he stalked back down the stairs and over to me.

"What's up?" I asked, laughing lightly and swallowing hard when I met his eyes.

The last time they'd been that narrowed and squinty was when he'd found me in the backseat of Eric Yorkie's mother's station wagon one night while I was in high school.

I hadn't been allowed out of the house for two months for more than school because of that and really, it hadn't even been worth it. Nothing but having his tongue rammed down my throat and his hand up my shirt and my father had overreacted to the umpteenth degree.

He kept his eyes on me as he reached inside his dark blue jacket and came out with a folded up piece of paper.

He held it up in front of me, his eyes widening slightly before he pulled it down and unfolded it.

I watched him, one eyebrow raised as I wondered if my father had completely lost his mind.

He drove almost an hour out of his way to show me a piece of paper?

I continued to watch, sighing quietly as he finally unfolded the paper and held it up in front of me.

My eyes widened when I saw the picture he'd very obviously printed out from one of the many internet sites mine and Edward's night out had been posted on.

So much for that smooth transition I'd been hoping for.

"Uh…" I started, swallowing hard again and licking my lips.

He merely shook the paper in my face, pointing at it with his free hand before gripping it with both hands and shaking it again.

"Well…"

He dropped his hands, his head tilted slightly at me as he stood up as straight as he could possibly get and his nostrils flared.

"See, dad…"

He held up the paper again, shaking it furiously a few inches from my face before dropping it again.

Yes, father, I can see what you have. Stop shaking it in my face and I'll be able to explain everything to you.

"Why don't we go inside?" I sighed, motioning with one of my hands to the front door.

He quickly turned on his heel and stalked back to the porch, leaping up the two steps and staring at the door as he waited for me.

I took a deep breath, casting a glance over my shoulder at Edward's house before slowly walking up behind him and shaking my house keys out of my pocket.

I could say everything that I needed to say within ten minutes, right? I could definitely explain all that had happened in the past week and a half in ten minutes, right?

_Right_?

Sighing again, I unlocked the door and immediately wanted to slap my forehead in frustration as I walked in.

I didn't have any damn furniture. Charlie didn't _know_ I didn't have any damn furniture. Charlie probably didn't understand _why_ I didn't have any damn furniture.

"Bella, what in the _hell_ happened here?" he roared, brushing by me and standing in the middle of my living room.

Ah, so he _can_ speak after all.

What was it with all the men in my life losing that little ability today? First Edward and now my father?

It was a good thing that I didn't know many other men.

"Uh, Jake moved out?" I said quietly, closing the door behind me once I'd grabbed my keys from the door.

He narrowed his eyes at me and merely held up the paper again.

I rolled my eyes and stalked over to him, snatching the paper from his hands and throwing it to the floor behind me.

"If you want an explanation, you're gonna have to give that up."

I watched him suck in a deep breath before he crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow at me.

"Jake had a bit of a jealousy issue concerning Edward," I started slowly.

"That doesn't explain why you're on the _internet_!"

I pursed my lips at him and crossed my arms over my chest.

"If you'd _listen_ to me, I'd tell you!"

"I'm sorry, Bells, but I'm a little confused!"

"I'm trying to explain it to you!"

He huffed and nodded once, his clear indication that he was going to let me speak.

"Jake didn't like that I was friends with Edward." I pointed out the windows at my side to Edward's house. "It got too much for him to deal with and he broke it off with me. He moved out and took almost everything that he could."

"I never liked him," Charlie said quickly, his arms falling to his sides as he stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets.

I rolled my eyes.

While it was true that Jake wasn't his favorite person in the entire world, I couldn't believe it when he said that he didn't like him. Aside from the fact that Jake was his best friend's son, Charlie had gone to great lengths to encourage my relationship with him.

Come to find out, it had been the worst thing that I could've ever given in to.

"Yeah, well," I finally grumbled, looking down at my feet.

"Are you okay?" he asked after a few moments of silence.

I sighed heavily and looked up at him again, feeling awkward and more than a little lost about this whole thing.

"I'm much better now that I'm with Edward."

I watched him shift his eyes toward the paper lying on the floor and resisted the urge to roll mine yet again.

"We've been together for about a week," I started, shaking my head at the time line.

It felt like so much longer. And not in a bad way, either. Like I'd known him my entire life and it had just taken me this long to realize what I'd been missing out on.

So much had happened during that week.

"And this was our way of coming out to the public."

"Hell of a way," he grumbled, rocking back and forth on his heels. "It would've been nice to know something like that, Bells, instead of having to find out from one of the guys I worked with."

"Does he have nothing better to do than troll around online and look for the latest celebrity gossip?" I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest again.

"His daughter is apparently a big fan of this Edward fellow. He spent half the night trying to get her to stop crying about it."

I sighed again and shook my head disbelievingly as he rolled his eyes.

"I'm not going to apologize for it."

"Is he good to you?" he asked quickly, his eyes zeroing in on mine and squinting slightly.

"He's very good to me," I answered quietly, nodding and licking my lips. "He'll be over here in a few minutes and you can meet him then."

Charlie nodded solemnly and I watched as he brought one hand out from his pocket to gently pat his gun resting in the holder at his side.

"You will _not_ do that to him!" I exclaimed quickly, pointing at him.

"Do what?" he asked innocently, raising an eyebrow.

"Dad, he's important!"

He pursed his lips, clearly unhappy with that statement and dropped his hand to his side again, grumbling under his breath as he shook his head and looked out the windows.

"What else did Jake take from you?"

I sighed and reached up to tap my forehead. I really didn't want to have this conversation with him right now. There was entirely too much floating around in my head to even attempt trying to explain all of _that_ to him.

"What didn't he take?" I sighed, dropping my hand back into the crook of my arm and looking up at him.

"Then why in the hell don't you have any new furniture? Why in the hell did you _let_ him take everything?"

"What was I going to do?" I exclaimed, throwing my hands out at my sides. "If you hadn't noticed before, he's a hell of a lot bigger than I am!"

"You have the recliner!"

He pointed to the poor thing sitting off to the side and I sighed, nodding.

"Yes, I'm aware of that."

"That's it!"

I blinked at him. I was _really_ glad that he wasn't a detective.

"Why haven't you gotten anything new?"

"I haven't really had the time to go look."

"Why not?"

I bit my bottom lip and motioned with my head toward the front windows and Edward's house.

"He's leaving in a week to go home for the holidays. I'm spending all my free time with him and that doesn't include going shopping for new furniture."

Charlie shifted his feet and stuffed his free hand back into his pocket, looking down at his shoes and grumbling under his breath again.

We'd never talked boys or relationships or the extent of any of them while I was growing up and I hated that we had to start now.

I'd moved in with him during my junior year of high school. My mother had just gotten married to Phil and they wanted to travel; get out and see the world while they could. My mom, however, refused because I was still in school and she wasn't going to take that away from me.

I'd seen how much she'd really wanted to go and had exiled myself from my very comfortable home with my mother and Phil in Jacksonville, Florida to move back to upstate New York with my father.

I vaguely remembered living there with both of my parents when I was younger, but only remembered visiting for a few odd holidays and having Charlie tell me all about how we'd all lived in New York once upon a time.

It had been a very quiet two years before I graduated high school – neither of us really knowing what to say to the other most of the time and only really talking about boys when I had a date for the night – and my grandmother had suggested that I work for her at the local bookstore.

I'd fallen completely in love with the ins and outs of a family run business and even when my mother had called to say that they were settling back into Jacksonville, I hadn't wanted to leave.

I'd unknowingly fallen in love with upstate New York and honestly hadn't wanted to go back to live in the hot, sticky climate that I'd adored two years before.

"How did you not know that Jake moved out?" I asked after a few more moments of uncomfortable silence, desperate to change the subject. "You talk to Billy, don't you?"

"We don't discuss the love lives of our children, Bella. Unspoken rule," he grumbled, digging his toe into the carpet.

I nodded, biting my bottom lip before sighing heavily and looking over into the dining room.

"Have you eaten?"

"I haven't been home yet."

"Would you like to or is Sue making you something for when you get there?"

"Sue's got some scrapbooking class or some other thing," he mumbled, waving a hand absently at the window. "I was just going to stop and get something on the way home."

"I'll make something. We haven't eaten yet either."

"We," he scoffed, huffing and looking out the windows again.

I rolled my eyes and finally shed my coat, throwing it on the recliner and walking into the kitchen.

I didn't even know what I had to make. It had felt like a lifetime ago that Edward and I had gone shopping together and I'd gotten so used to being in his kitchen, in his home, making myself comfortable and eating all of his food that being back in my own kitchen was a little like being on a foreign planet.

"Will you promise to be nice to him?" I asked as I heard his footsteps in the dining room.

"I'll put my best foot forward."

His _best foot forward_ usually meant staring at whoever he wasn't sure he approved of and making them as uncomfortable as they could possibly get within the first three seconds of meeting him.

Edward was nervous enough when I left the house – pacing around, his hands in his hair and his movements jerky and stilted – and the last thing he really needed was my father staring him down and making it ten times worse.

"That doesn't reassure me, dad."

I opened the refrigerator and leaned on the door before shaking my head, closing the door and sidestepping to open a cabinet and grab a bag of pasta.

"You're throwing an awful lot at me today, Bells. I'm doing my best here."

I stood up straight and walked over the counter, throwing the bag on it before leaning my hip against it and looking over at him as he stood in my dining room.

"Dad, he's _really_ important, okay? So it would really mean a lot if you'd just… hide your gun. Somewhere. Preferably not within reaching distance."

"Bella, I won't threaten him and I won't kill him. What more do you want from me?" he sighed, finally taking his jacket off and resting it on the back of one of the chairs.

I sighed as well, chewing on my bottom lip again before shaking my head and waving a hand at him as I turned around and grabbed a pot from the overhead cabinet.

Asking him again to be nice to him would probably get me nowhere.

"So why don't you tell me the whole story, Bells?" he asked as he walked into the kitchen behind me and over to the refrigerator.

I heard beer bottles clanking together as he grabbed one and walked over to the sink to start filling the pot with water.

"How'd this all happen?"

I listened as he twisted the top off and threw it in the garbage, thinking about how I was going to explain all of this to him.

Taking a deep breath, I flicked off the water once the pot was half full and walked over to the stove before launching into the whole story of how we met, the Jacob situation and how we'd decided to start dating.

Leaving little tidbits out such as getting buzzed and practically attacking him the first time I kissed him.

Short, semi-sweet and directly to the point while I moved around my kitchen, making a quick dinner that we could all try enjoying.

He'd migrated back into the dining room and had sat down by the time I was finished, playing with the label on his beer bottle and nodding his head almost mechanically.

He opened his mouth and then snapped it shut again when we heard a knock on the front door. Wiping my immediately sweaty palms on my jeans, I took another deep breath and pointed to the pot on the stove.

"Will you make sure that it doesn't boil over?"

He nodded once more, his eyes trained on the clear view he had of the front door from where he was sitting.

"Yeah, sure."

Sighing, I licked my lips and walked by him into the living room and yanked open the front door to reveal a very nervous Edward standing in front of me.

His hair was always messy, yes, but this was an extreme. Most of it was sticking up in two different directions as if he'd been yanking on it for hours, his eyes were slightly wider than normal and his bottom lip looked like mine usually did when I was nervously trying to chew it off.

My heart instantly went out to him and looking over my shoulder to find that Charlie was most definitely _not_ watching the pasta, I reached out and gently pushed on Edward's chest before stepping down onto the porch and closing the door behind me.

"He hates me!" Edward exclaimed the second the door clicked into place.

"He doesn't know you. He can't hate you."

"He doesn't have to know me to hate me, Bella."

His hands went into his hair again and I grabbed onto his wrists, yanking them down and forcing his hands on my waist as I stepped into him.

"Edward, he doesn't hate you," I said softly, attempting to make his eyes meet mine.

When he kept looking away from me, I moved my hands from his wrists and grabbed his face, waiting until his eyes met mine before I started speaking again.

"Calm down."

"Bella…" he whined, his fingertips digging into my waist as he pulled me closer to him.

"He's not used to this either, okay? He knew Jake before and while he still didn't like that we were dating, at least he'd known him a little bit. He doesn't know anything about you except that you're an actor."

"And that goes against me!"

I bit my bottom lip and looked into his eyes, running my thumbs over his cheeks.

"You don't have to meet him tonight, I guess," I said quietly, my heart falling.

It surprised me that I _wanted_ them to meet. I guess it was just one more way to incorporate him into my life and meeting my father was one hell of a big step for that.

But if he wasn't sure about it and if he wasn't comfortable with it, I wasn't going to make him do anything that he really didn't want to do. I wasn't going to push him into something that made him uncomfortable when the entire reason for him even being in upstate New York was so that he could _escape_.

I hadn't really let him do that this time. And if he truly didn't want to meet my father, well, I wasn't going to make him.

"I can just tell him that you aren't feeling well. We can do this another time, I guess."

I watched as his eyes closed and he sucked in a deep breath before he pulled me against him and gently placed his lips on mine, his arms winding tightly around my waist.

"Does he have a gun?" he asked, pulling away only a little.

I swallowed hard, letting my eyes open slowly to meet his as I nodded a little.

"Will he kill me?"

"I'd never let him touch you," I whispered, running the tips of my thumbs down the bridge of his nose. "But really, if you don't…"

One of his hands disappeared from my waist, reaching out and twisting the doorknob behind us.

"Remember me fondly, okay?"

I rolled my eyes and kissed him one more time before turning around, smiling stupidly at the door and letting him push it open for me.

Charlie was still sitting at the table, both hands grasping his beer bottle when I walked in with an eyebrow raised in my direction. He stood up when Edward stepped in behind me and cleared his throat as he stuffed his hands in his pocket.

Proudly framing the gun in his holster while he was at it, too. I rolled my eyes and waited to hear the door close completely and for Edward to shed his coat before grabbing his hand, linking our fingers and walking into the dining room with him.

Immediately, there was about a three foot thick wall of tension in between the two of us and Charlie and I couldn't stop the sigh that escaped my lips.

"Dad, this is Edward," I said once we both came to a stop. "Edward, this is my father, Charlie."

I let go of Edward's hand and could've sworn that I heard a small whimper sound from him when I did so.

Charlie looked Edward up and down and I had to fight the urge to smack him and snatch the gun away from him.

Really, he was just making this worse for everyone. And if one of them didn't say _something_ soon, it was altogether possible that I'd scream at the top of my lungs.

It would break the ice if nothing else. And I'd feel a hell of a lot better about this whole thing, too.

"Nice to meet you," Charlie finally mumbled, holding out one hand when he was done with the apparent appraisal.

"You too, sir," Edward managed, holding out his hand and clasping it in Charlie's.

"Actor, huh?"

They both dropped their hands and I narrowed my eyes at Charlie, silently warning him that while he had the gun, I'd kill him if I had to.

Somehow.

"Yes, sir."

Oh, Jesus. He was going to say _sir_ after everything, wasn't he?

Why had I wanted this to happen? Why had I thought this was a good idea?

"Leaving in a week, huh?"

"Yes, sir."

Charlie nodded, stuffing his hand back in his pocket and rocking back and forth on his heels again.

"Live out in California?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where's your family from? They in California too?"

"No, sir. My family lives in Washington; in Forks."

Charlie snorted and my eyes narrowed into little slits.

"Forks, huh?"

"Yes, sir. Small town; rains ninety-nine percent of the time and I've known the same people for the majority of my life. It's home."

Charlie nodded, continuing to rock back and forth on his heels as he kept his eyes on Edward's.

"What do your parents do?"

"My father's a doctor and my mother's an interior designer."

Charlie nodded again, humming before he stopped rocking and reached over to grab his beer bottle from the table again.

"How do you plan on making this work with you being all… an actor?"

I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath, slowly shaking my head from side to side as silence encased the whole house.

We were going to have this conversation _now_? We hadn't even talked about it between the two of us yet.

"Well," Edward started slowly, his hand grabbing and squeezing mine.

I opened my eyes and looked back at him, smiling slowly when I saw that while he still looked slightly crazed and terrified, he had a small crooked smile on his face as he looked at me.

"We both know that it won't be easy, but we trust each other. And every time I get an extended amount of time off, the first place I'm headed to is an airport to get back here. Phone calls," he shrugged easily, looking back at Charlie and smiling nervously. "We'll make the best of it."

Charlie hummed again, draining the minimal amount of liquid left in the beer bottle before hooking one thumb into his trouser pocket.

"Water's boiling over, Bella."

I was still staring at Edward, my heart beating fast in my chest and my teeth gnawing on my bottom lip as I ran over the words he'd just said.

He was going to come back here every chance he got. Granted, I didn't know how often that would be, but still… he _wanted_ to come back here because of _me_.

Most importantly, while we hadn't talked about it, he'd _thought_ about what would happen. He'd made a plan; he had a _plan_ for us.

I was really beginning to resent that my father was standing in front of us.

The corset was suddenly digging into my sides, making its presence clearly known and absolutely begging me to let Edward take it off.

Something he couldn't do and I wouldn't let happen with Charlie surely staring holes into the side of my head at the moment.

"Bella!"

I jumped out of my little world and looked back at Charlie, slightly annoyed that he'd interrupted all of my musings.

"What?"

"The water's boiling over!"

I looked at him, blinking and trying to understand what the hell he might've been talking about before it finally clicked.

"Shit!"

I untangled my hand from Edward's and flew into the kitchen, quickly lifting the pot off of the burner and flicking off the flame. I heard Edward chuckling behind me and turned to see that he was getting the strainer out of the cabinet and placing it in the sink for me.

"Forget something, love?" he asked quietly, smirking at me as he kissed my cheek when I made it over to him.

"Shut up," I mumbled, gently elbowing him out of the way.

He laughed and reached out to squeeze my side before stepping behind me. I heard him open the refrigerator door and snuck a look over at Charlie, who was watching us carefully with his lips twisted to the side as he tapped his fingertips on the beer bottle in his hand.

I merely raised an eyebrow at him and he raised one of his back at me, nodding slightly in the direction of my refrigerator and ultimately, Edward.

"Do you want another beer, Char… uhm… I mean…"

I pressed my lips together in an attempt not to laugh at him and closed my eyes briefly before turning back and dumping the pasta into the strainer.

"Yes, Edward, thank you."

I heard him laugh nervously and coughed to cover up the laugh that wanted to make its way out of my throat.

"Bella, you want one?"

I looked over at him as I set the empty pot back on the stove and nodded, smirking at him.

"Yeah, sure."

He playfully narrowed an eye at me before grabbing three bottles out of the refrigerator and handing them to us. He flicked the top off of mine quickly, throwing it in the garbage before setting it down on the counter next to me and kissing my cheek again.

"So," Charlie interrupted, clearing his throat as he twisted the top off of his beer and threw it carelessly onto the table. "You're still coming to the house for Christmas, right Bells?"

Edward had stepped back at that point and I sighed quietly, turning on the tap water and letting it run over the pasta as I nodded.

"Yeah, dad, I'll be there."

"Sue said she'd make dinner this year so you don't need to worry about that."

I smiled softly and looked over at him, nodding and doing my best to ignore the painful tugging on my heart that was clearly reminding me that by Christmas, Edward would be gone.

"That's great. Tell her thanks."

"Seth and Leah will be there, too."

I rolled my eyes, slamming my hand on the tap to turn it off and sidestepping to get a bowl out of another cabinet.

"Great," I grumbled.

Seth I didn't mind very much. In fact, we'd always gotten along pretty well and I found him to be my saving grace during the holidays. We spent more time making fun of our family members than we did actually talking to them and it was one of the _best_ ways to relieve all the stress the holiday heaped onto my shoulders each year.

Leah, on the other hand, had had it out for me the minute she realized that I was dating Jake.

She'd had her eyes on him ever since I could remember and would do her best to wear the lowest cut clothing she could manage to find when she knew he'd be coming with me.

She'd been snooty and bitchy and had done her best to flaunt herself during all the holidays when I brought Jake with me to the house.

I could only imagine how happy she'd be this year when she found out that we'd broken up.

I couldn't wait for _those_ snide comments that would be thrown my way during dinner.

Because there was always something and it was _always_ during dinner when I couldn't reach across the table and slap her without being banished from the house for the rest of my life.

And the pathetic, _"Leah, that's not very appropriate,"_ reprimand that Sue shot her way every year never really managed to keep her trap shut for very long.

Don't get me wrong; I adored Sue and she was perfect for my father. Her daughter, on the other hand, really needed to be smacked around a few times so that she'd learn some damn table manners.

"It won't be that bad this year, Bells. I heard that she was dating someone."

"Poor bastard doesn't know what he's gotten himself into," I mumbled, dumping the pasta into the bowl and nearly throwing the strainer into the sink.

I heard Edward snort from behind me before he was at my side and pulling down three bowls for us.

"I hope you guys don't mind eating plain tonight," I announced, grabbing a serving spoon from the drawer and digging it into the pasta before grabbing it and walking into the dining room. "I didn't have much time to plan."

"Anything's better than Burger King, Bells. If Sue saw another burger wrapper in the trash when she got home, I probably would've spent the rest of the night hearing about it."

"You need to eat better," I said casually, shrugging as I set the bowl in the middle of the table and moved out of the way to let Edward place the other bowls on the place mats.

"Does she do this to you, too, Edward?" he asked as he sat back down in the chair. "Nag you about eating right?"

I shot Charlie a look over my shoulder, smirking slightly as I disappeared back into the kitchen to grab the butter and utensils.

"She's been feeding me since I got here, so I've had no room to complain about anything."

I smiled smugly to myself as I walked back into the dining room and set everything down on the table, looking over at Edward as he sat down and laughing as he grinned up at me.

"Well, don't get used to it," Charlie grumbled, shifting in his seat. "It doesn't take long for them to start working on you to make you what they consider _better_."

I pursed my lips at him, raising an eyebrow and kicking his shin. He howled in pain, immediately reaching down and rubbing the spot where I'd kicked him.

He didn't say anything more, though.

"Either of you need anything else?" I asked dryly, placing my hands on the back of the chair and looking in between them.

They shook their heads – Charlie still pouting up at me and rubbing his leg – and I sat down, getting comfortable before realizing that I'd left my beer in the kitchen.

"Shit," I mumbled, pushing my chair back out.

"Sit down," Edward said, quickly pushing his chair back out and jumping up, apparently having the sudden ability to read my mind. "I'll get it."

He reached out and squeezed my shoulder as he passed by me. I looked over at Charlie as he grabbed the spoon from the pasta bowl and tilted my head at him.

He rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders as he sat up straight again, dumping the pasta onto his plate – his way of saying that Edward was _not so bad_.

My heart jumped in my chest and I had to fight the squeal and the sudden need to leap across the table and hug him as if my life depended on it.

He may not have liked him all that much just yet, but he didn't hate him. And he'd started actually talking to him as opposed to questioning him about every little detail that he could think of within three seconds.

For Charlie, that was probably as good as it was going to get right now.

I smiled and looked up as Edward placed my beer in front of me and sat down again. I reached underneath the table and gently squeezed his knee, smiling brightly at him.

He placed his hand over mine and curled his fingers around my palm, squeezing back and running his thumb over my knuckles.

No, this day hadn't been that bad at all.

~*~

"So, ah," Charlie grumbled, uncomfortably rubbing the back of his neck as we stood outside on my porch an hour later.

I patiently stared up at him, my hands clasped behind my back and comfortably tangled up in the jacket both the men in my house had insisted I wear.

They were worse than overprotective mother hens. They'd also spent most of the dinner telling embarrassing stories about how I seemed to enjoy falling flat on my face every chance I got.

Just because Edward didn't have that much ammunition in that department didn't mean that he hadn't had anything to talk about.

And he was now able to walk away from the whole thing with entirely too much knowledge on how clumsy I really was all the damn time.

While I was glad that Charlie hadn't attempted touching his gun again throughout the entire meal, I wasn't too thrilled with the idea that they'd managed to bond over something like how impossible it was for me to stay on my feet for very long.

"Thanks for dinner," he continued, shifting uncomfortably on his feet and dropping his hand to his side. "It was good."

I raised an eyebrow at him and nodded, fighting off the smile that threatened my lips.

"You're welcome. Tell Sue I said hi, okay?"

He nodded almost frantically, his hand sliding back around his neck as he stared holes in the floor of the porch.

"I guess," he finally started, huffing and slapping his hand down against his thigh before finally looking at me. "I guess he's not so bad."

I suppressed the grin and shrugged, shaking my head at him.

"No, he's not."

"And I guess you could've done worse."

"Dad, we both know that I _have_ done worse."

He grunted, looking over at the door and nodding absently.

"Does he always do all of that stuff for you? Without you having to ask him for it?"

I nodded, moving my hands from my back to wrap them around my waist and smirking.

"It wasn't an act, dad. Edward's always like that."

He huffed before looking back at me and sighing.

"Promise me that you'll be careful, okay?"

"Dad…"

"No one's good enough for my baby girl," he said quickly as he pulled me into a hug and awkwardly kissed the side of my head.

I relaxed into him and closed my eyes, wrapping my arms tightly around his waist and hugging him tightly.

It wasn't often that Charlie showed a whole ton of affection and while I'd come to expect it from him and not push it, every time he did hug me or say something like that to me, I was back to being the girl in high school that had come home crying my eyes out when my first semi-serious boyfriend in a new town broke up with me. And he'd hugged me and let me cry on him for the rest of the night, not saying a word and just being there when I needed him.

"All right," he sighed, backing away from me and stuffing his hands back into his pockets. "Sue will be home soon and she'll be wondering about all of this."

"Told her, huh?"

"She's the one that talked me out of running home to grab the shotgun before I came here."

I rolled my eyes and smacked his arm while he laughed.

"I'll call you and we'll nail down some real plans for Christmas, okay?"

I nodded and quickly stood up on my toes to kiss his cheek before he grumbled a goodbye and nearly sprinted to the cruiser.

I smiled after him, waving as he backed out of the driveway, flashed the red and blue lights on top of the car once as his goodbye and drove off down the road.

Shaking my head and laughing lightly, I turned and walked back into the house, shedding my coat again and walking into the kitchen to find that Edward was already loading the dishwasher for me.

I stopped and leaned against the doorjamb, crossing my arms over my chest and smiling softly as I watched him.

The hot shot actor that had teenage girls crying over him all night was standing in my kitchen, putting dirty dishes into the dishwasher as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

He had put everything on the line for me. He'd sacrificed the majority of the privacy that he craved while he was here to show the world that he was taken. He'd met my friends and my father and he'd had me meet his sister. He was dealing with what I could only imagine was a very upset agent because of me; because he'd wanted to.

He'd been terrified when I answered the door earlier tonight and he'd been just as scared meeting Rosalie and Angela but he'd done it anyway.

He'd done it for _me_.

I pushed myself off of the doorjamb and walked over to him just as he was shutting the dishwasher door. He turned and smiled, holding out a hand for me.

I grabbed it as I reached him and stepped up on my toes, burying my other hand in his hair and pressing my lips against his. His other hand rested on my waist as I stepped in closer to him and I opened my mouth under his.

His tongue immediately met mine and he squeezed my hand, his other arm wrapping tightly around my waist.

"I love you," I breathed as I stepped down from him.

He smiled, his thumb rubbing my back gently.

"I love you too." He kissed me again. "Are you ready to go home?"

I grinned and nodded, turning on my heel and walking ahead of him to go back into the living room to once again grab my coat.

As much as I'd loved this house when I bought it, it no longer held the same kind of happiness I thought I'd had before.

My home was with Edward; along with my heart and every single inch of my soul. I was connected to him in ways that I never thought possible and I'd never change that for anything.


	23. Chapter 23

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Okay… long damn chapter, guys.**

**And I'm officially on vacation from work for the next five days - *does a happy dance* - so hopefully I'll be able to get the next chapter out soon.**

**Thanks, as always, to all the reviewers and the people that have me on alert and have recommended me to friends or on communities; you guys are fucking amazing. This story would be nothing without your encouragement and kind words and I honestly can't thank you enough.**

**And seriously, thanks so much for getting me to over eight hundred reviews. I'm still in shock over it. Thanks so much!  
**

~*~

***Edward***

I abruptly woke up when I felt her elbow jab me in the stomach and groaned, rolling even closer to her and wrapping my arms around her waist, effectively pinning her arms to her chest.

"Get up," she mumbled, her voice thick with sleep.

"No."

"The phone's ringing."

I yawned, burying my nose into the back of her neck when I felt safe that she wouldn't try to hit me again.

Since when did the phone ever bother her when she was sleeping? The one time that I'd actually heard it ring while she was here, she'd barely moved, much less woken up.

"They'll go away."

"No, they won't."

I grunted into her neck, throwing my leg on top of hers and tightening my arms around her waist.

"Yes, they will."

"It's been ringing for the past hour, Edward. Please," she yawned, wiggling around. "You need a damn answering machine."

"That means that I'm obligated to call them back."

"How do you figure?"

"I have to listen to whoever it is. And I'm sure that it's just my sister. Ignore her and she goes away."

"Edward," she whined, wiggling around a little more.

"Go back to sleep," I mumbled, breathing in the scent of my shampoo in her hair.

It always smelled so much better on her than it did when I used it.

I smiled when the phone stopped ringing and kissed the back of her neck, listening as she sighed and relaxed against me.

"Told you," I mumbled.

"Mm," she mumbled, "shut up."

I laughed sleepily and did as she asked, absently rubbing my thumb against her stomach through the t-shirt.

After returning back home from meeting her father, I'd watched with a whole hell of a lot of pouting as she took off the corset, threw the t-shirt over her head and crawled into bed.

She was tired. Yeah, I understood that. I could accept that she was tired and dealing with her father for the rest of the night had been pretty stressful for her.

Not to mention for me, too. At least she'd been slightly more prepared for when she met Alice.

Nothing scares the shit out of any guy more than meeting their girlfriends' parents. I am no exception to that and I spent the entire ten minutes pacing, trying to tear my hair out and convincing myself that there was no possible way that he'd like me.

I was all wrong for her. There were probably a hundred thousand things he could come up with to prove it to her and of course when he said it, she'd see that he was right and she'd break it off with me.

I had been very tempted to pack all of my shit and barrel out of the driveway with the Volvo. Snow be damned; I wouldn't have had time to dig it out.

But this was Bella and I loved her. And if I had to meet her father, then I would meet her father.

So I dawdled my way over there, my bottom lip caught in between my teeth in much the same fashion that Bella always had hers and knocked on the door.

I'd wanted to crawl into a damn hole and never come out when the first thing I saw was her father sitting at her dining room table, glaring at me and leaning back to show off his gun.

But she wanted me to meet him. And as much as I'd wanted to, I couldn't deny her anything.

So I went inside and I met him and I called him _sir_. Numerous times.

And by the end of the night, while I wasn't anywhere close to being accepted by him, at least I was still alive. I was still alive, I was still with Bella and there was no going wrong with that.

Everything had been fine until she'd put her coat on to go outside and say goodbye to Charlie. I'd forgotten that she still had the corset on underneath my t-shirt – somehow – until she'd lifted her arms above her head to slip her arms into her jacket.

That's when I saw a little black sliver appear just above her jeans and I'd been very thankful that Charlie was already out the door.

The response that small little peek had received probably would've really gotten me shot at that point.

So I'd been quick to clean up the mess we'd made from dinner in hopes that when we got back to my place, she'd want to continue from where we'd left off.

But when she'd looked up at me from the bed, her eyes barely open as she patted the spot beside her, I'd given in and had gotten ready for bed as well.

I had a week. There was an entire week when I'd have the opportunity to see her in that again.

An entire week where I could be… _helpful_ in taking it off and showing her just how skilled I really was when it came to those tiny fucking clasps I'd watched her deftly unhook.

An entire week where we wouldn't have to wake up to the alarm clock and she wouldn't have to go in to work to deal with Jessica. An entire week where I'd finally be able to take care of _her_.

The phone started ringing again and she groaned in frustration, wiggling against me.

"It's been ringing for an hour, Edward! Please go answer it," she begged.

"How the hell did you even hear it?"

"When it rings for an hour non-stop, it's hard to ignore it. I'm surprised that you didn't hear the damn thing. You had to pick the most annoying ring tone on that damn thing too, didn't you? I'm changing it as soon as I possibly can."

I smirked sleepily into her hair as I listened to her ramble about the ring tones on a home phone being almost as annoying as the ring tones on a cell phone.

Note to self: Bella doesn't like being woken up by phones.

Not that it really mattered – when I wasn't here anymore and only had phone conversations to hold on to, I was calling her no matter what time it was.

Hopefully she wouldn't hold that against me.

"If you ever want to see me naked again, you _will_ answer that phone," she threatened.

"We don't necessarily have to be naked, you know. It just makes things a little more complicated, but it's otherwise easy to get around."

"Okay," she said slowly and I smirked again, believing that I'd won this round.

"If you ever want me to come within fifteen feet of you again, you will answer that fucking phone."

I quickly untangled myself from her and was walking out of the bedroom before I could really comprehend anything else. I ran a hand through my hair, shaking my head and wondering when the hell she'd gotten so much power and control over me as I walked down the stairs and glared at the phone.

I was really fucking comfortable, too, so Alice better have a good fucking reason for calling me at…

I looked over at the microwave and my eyes narrowed when I saw that it was barely five in the morning.

Meaning that it was barely two in the morning in Washington.

I was going to joyfully murder my sister when I got the chance.

What the hell was she doing up, anyway? I know that she didn't need a massive amount of sleep before she was firing on all cylinders, but even two in the morning was a bit much for her.

I snatched the phone off of its base, listening to hear Bella's footsteps above me as she climbed out of the bed and I scowled at the ringing annoyance in my hand, pressing the right button.

"Alice, so help me, this had better be good," I growled as I put the phone up to my ear, ignoring the caller ID flashing on the screen.

"Edward, as soon as I find out where you're hiding, I'm coming there to murder you."

I froze and stared into the dark living room when I heard the familiar dry, annoyed voice on the other end of the line.

I was fucked.

And most definitely _not_ in a good way.

So I laughed nervously and hunched my shoulders, turning from the living room and immediately plopping down into one of the chairs at the table.

"I uhm… we uh… something came up."

"If you even _think_ about telling me that the thing that came up was attached to your body, I'm booking a flight in ten minutes and your ass is picking me up whether you like it or not."

I slapped my forehead, shaking my head and resting my elbow on the table.

"_No_, Jeannie. Someone showed up and the situation couldn't be ignored."

"You seem to ignore the other big situation over in this part of the world pretty damn well, Edward!"

"Don't you ever sleep?" I sighed, running my hand down my face.

"Don't you ever answer a question? Or keep a promise?"

"Jeannie, I was going to call you…"

"Do you know how I've had to scramble around for answers when I only know her name? I had to disconnect my phone at the office for a few hours, Edward, because it wouldn't stop ringing. I couldn't get any work done!"

"I'm sorry."

And I really was. Jeannie put up with a hell of a lot of shit from me and for me; the least I could do was call her back when I promised her that I would.

"And do you know how much digging I had to do to get your number? The people at the phone company up there aren't too happy with me at the moment."

I rolled my eyes, over the regret I'd momentarily felt as I pushed back from the table and walked into the kitchen, absently starting a pot of coffee for Bella as I heard the water in the bathroom finally kick on.

What I'd give to be up there with her right now. What I'd give to still be in bed, wrapped around her and _sleeping_.

Christ, she was going to be tired as hell tonight. And that shot all the plans I had for when she got home from her last day of work straight to hell.

Damn Jeannie.

"So you decided to call me at two in the morning your time?"

"I knew you'd be there at this time. You can't hide from me Edward. I haven't pried into your life up there simply because I know that you need time away from everything out here. And it's never been an issue before. But when you start dating someone new – someone who is unknown to this world – without telling me and giving me a warning, it tends to make things a little hard!"

"We were just… Jeannie, we were just enjoying each other."

"And that's entirely too much of your sex life that I didn't need to know about."

I rolled my eyes again, snapping the top of the coffee pot into place once I'd poured the water into it.

"That's not what I meant," I grumbled, walking to the refrigerator and flinging open the door to grab the coffee grounds.

"Nevertheless," she stated simply, her deep voice unusually chipper, "I need to talk to her."

"Excuse me?" I asked dryly, nearly dropping the can of coffee as I walked back to the counter. "What do you need to talk to her for?"

"She's not an actress, meaning that I don't have an agent to talk to so that I can get all of the information I need. Meaning," she sighed heavily, the chipper aspect to her voice completely gone, "that I need to talk to her."

"Why can't you just ask me the questions? I know enough about her," I grumbled, slamming the coffee can on the counter and ripping off the plastic top.

Jeannie had never wanted to talk to a girlfriend of mine before. It had never made that much of a difference and she'd never actually _had_ to talk to them before.

Granted most of the people in the world had already known everything there was to know about them because of who they were and yes, Jeannie had a point about Bella not being an actress and being out in California with the rest of my exes, but it didn't mean that I wanted Jeannie to talk to her.

If Alice hadn't scared her away, Jeannie definitely would.

"Can you tell me the name of her parents?"

"Charlie," I said proudly, scooping the grounds into the coffee machine.

"And her mother?"

"Uh…"

"Give her the phone, Edward," she demanded, her voice low.

"She's in the shower!"

I think.

"So get your pretty little ass in that bathroom and give her the damn phone. Edward, I'm not playing around with you anymore. Do you really _want_ them to pry into her life and follow her around when they don't have to?"

"No," I grumbled, slamming the plastic lid back onto the can and snapping the rest of the machine into place.

"Then go give her the damn phone!" she shouted.

"Seriously, don't you ever sleep?" I sighed, flipping the switch on the machine before grudgingly walking towards the stairs.

"I sleep a hell of a lot better when my clients aren't trying to drive me insane!"

"I don't do this on purpose!"

"Could've fooled me. It seems that you like seeing me dye my hair a different color to avoid the grey's you've given me!"

"You look good as a brunette."

I think I heard her growl and I twisted my lips to the side as I made my way up the stairs.

"How'd you know she was even here?"

"You said you were in love with her," she said easily, "and since you're leaving soon, I can only imagine that your poor little heart doesn't want to be away from her."

"You really should get married one day, Jeannie," I grumbled, hauling myself up the last few stairs and padding over to the bathroom door. "You're such a hopeless romantic."

She scoffed.

"Like I have time to get married. Stop stalling."

I rolled my eyes and gently knocked on the door, reaching down to grab and twist the knob before stepping into the steam filled bathroom.

"Bella?"

"Was that Alice?" she asked immediately, her voice still slightly annoyed at being woken up this early. "If that was her, I swear to God, Edward, the next time I see her, I'm going to shove one of those designer heels right up her ass."

I heard Jeannie's cackle of laughter while I stifled my own and licked my lips, clearing my throat.

"Feisty one, isn't she?" Jeannie asked, still laughing.

"You have no idea," I grumbled.

"What?"

Bella stuck her head out of the curtain and I couldn't stop the bark of laughter that escaped my mouth when I saw her sudsy hair piled high on top of her head, her eyes narrowed dangerously at me and her lips pursed.

"Are you still talking to her? Give me that phone!" she demanded, sticking her arm out of the curtain and flexing her fingers at me.

"Yes, Edward, give her the phone."

"It's not Alice," I said quickly, watching as her arm slipped back into the shower and her eyes narrowed a little more at me.

"No telemarketer is really _that_ insistent, Edward," she drawled, reaching up to rub some of the shampoo off the side of her face.

"It's Jeannie, my agent." I watched as her eyes widened and she ducked back into the shower. "And she wants to talk to you."

I had to press my lips together when I heard her whimper over the sound of the running water.

"What have you told her about me, Edward? I can't imagine that the silence means anything good."

"Contrary to popular belief, Jeannie, I don't sit around and insult you all day."

Jeannie hummed and I sighed, walking over to the shower and carefully pulling back the curtain to see Bella standing under the spray of water, her hair still full of suds, her bottom lip caught in between her teeth and her fingertips resting on her chin.

"Bella," I said softly, waiting for her to look at me.

She did, her wide eyes slowly meeting mine as she gently tapped her fingertips against her chin.

"Is she mad at you?" her voice was barely a squeak over the water. "I didn't mean for… I guess I wasn't thinking… Edward, I didn't…"

"Jeannie, hang on for a second, all right?" I asked quickly, not waiting for an answer before placing the phone down on the sink across from the shower and climbing into the tub with her, still dressed in my pajama bottoms.

She backed up, making room for me but keeping her hands on her chin as she looked up at me, worried.

"She's only mad at me for not calling her back," I explained quietly, pressing myself against her and grabbing her face in my hands as the water ran down my back. "And she wants to talk to you so that she can get all of the facts straight for the statement she has to issue to everyone who's asking about us."

"I can't… talk to her. I mean," she shook her head, looking away from me, "I don't… know how."

"It's just like talking to any other person," I said, grabbing her hands in mine and holding them against my chest, waiting for her to look at me again. "She's just going to be asking you a ton of questions. And if you don't want to answer them, then you tell her that."

"Are they going to be really personal?"

"They shouldn't be." I bent down and kissed the back of one of her hands, keeping my eyes on hers. "Just the basics, love."

She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth again as she nodded slowly, taking a deep breath and standing on her toes to kiss me quickly.

"I'll be done in a minute."

I nodded, kissing her again and squeezing her hands before stepping out of the shower and grabbing an extra towel from the rod on the wall. Sliding my now completely soaked pajama bottoms and boxers to the floor, I wrapped the towel around my waist and pushed my wet hair out of my face as I grabbed the phone.

"She's gonna finish her shower and then she'll talk to you," I stated as I securely knotted the towel and bent down to pick up my wet clothes.

"All right," Jeannie yawned.

"Are you going back in tomorrow?"

I walked out of the bathroom, closing the door behind me and into the bedroom to plop my pants into the clothes basket at the end of the bed.

I guess it was laundry tonight.

"Of course I am. I can't miss a day that I'm not supposed to, Edward; you know that."

"When are you going to take a vacation, Jeannie?"

"When you retire."

"I think I can handle myself for a week."

"You've shown that well."

I rolled my eyes, grabbing a dry pair of boxers and slipping them on under the towel.

"If you knew her, you would've given up the right to rational thinking, too."

"For some reason, I doubt that."

"You can't terrorize her, Jeannie," I warned quickly as I walked out of the bedroom and back down the stairs once I'd put the towel into the laundry basket as well.

"Edward," she sighed heavily and I could practically see her shaking her head at me. "I'm not going to terrorize your little love interest of the moment."

My anger flared before I took a deep breath and squeezed my eyes closed once I made it back into the dining room.

She was only doing her job. She was looking out for me and making sure that I didn't do any permanent damage to my precious career.

I rolled my eyes again, sucking in a deep breath through my nose and reigning in my temper.

"How many more times do you really want me to tell you that she's _more_ than that?" I asked quietly.

"I'm not going to believe you until I see the two of you together so open your damn eyes, stop with the attitude and get over it," she snapped.

I pursed my lips and opened my eyes as she'd instructed, dropping a hand onto the table and tapping my fingernails against it.

I hated that she knew me so well. It was unnerving and completely inconvenient.

"She has to get up early, you know," I grumbled.

"It's already early. I did her a favor."

"She has to work."

"Then she shouldn't be staying at your place, should she?"

"I want her here."

"Then she should expect these things. If you've informed her so well of how her life is really going to be in a few weeks' time, she should know that nothing is going to be easy."

"She _knows_ that!"

"Then you should've been expecting my phone call."

"I thought I was safe," I grumbled.

"And that's where you went wrong."

I rolled my eyes, hearing the water kick off upstairs and stood up to pace around the room.

"Will you please just be nice to her?" I begged, running a hand through my still wet hair.

"Of course I'm going to be nice to her," she yawned. "Don't you know me at all?"

"Yeah, and that's what I'm scared of."

"You need to give me an address of where you are, too. The director of this script wants to know if you want in or if he has to start looking for someone else for the lead," she stated, ignoring my last comment.

"Oh, I need an extra ticket to that movie premiere," I said quickly, casting glances nervously up the stairs.

"You already have one."

I stopped pacing, furrowing my eyebrows and reaching around to scratch the back of my head.

"What?"

"You claim you're in love with this girl and then have a movie premiere to go to – alone? I'm not stupid, Edward."

I sighed heavily and shook my head.

I wished that Bella would be able to go with me, but I knew that she'd never go for it. No matter if I paid for the entire trip out there and back, she still had a business to run and with Jessica already at the premiere, there was no way that Bella would close just to go with me.

She was way more grounded and business savvy than I could ever claim to be.

"I need you to send it here, Jeannie," I sighed heavily, plopping back into the chair. "It's not for Bella."

"You're taking someone else?"

I could almost see her eyebrows raised at me and I sighed again, reaching up to tap the ball of my hand against my forehead.

"No. I just need a general admission ticket for someone else. I made a deal with her and she needs to have it before I leave."

"Feeding someone to the wolves, are you?" She sighed. "Fine. I'll get another one and have it sent to you as soon as possible. Now give me the address, Edward."

I gave it to her, pouting as I stared at the wall in front of me and waited for Bella to come back downstairs while Jeannie read the address back to me.

"You'll have these things on Tuesday. I really need you to look over this script because if that director calls me one more time, I'm going to be in jail when you get back here."

I snorted, completely believing that she had the ability to snap and kill someone if they looked at her the wrong way.

I'd seen her desk drawer overflowing with any kind of stomach and headache medicine anyone could possibly imagine and it wasn't hard to believe that one day she'd eventually lunge across that shiny desk at someone and snap their neck when they talked back to her.

That was one very big reason why I preferred talking to her on the phone rather than in person. She couldn't kill me if she couldn't see me.

"I'll look it over."

I looked up when I heard Bella's footsteps on the stairs and immediately smiled at her, most of the tension of having to talk to Jeannie this early in the morning melting away at just the sight of her.

Even wearing something as simple as a sweater and a pair of jeans, I thought she was absolutely beautiful. Her hair was still wet, she kept looking from me to the phone at my ear nervously and her bottom lip was once again in between her teeth.

She smiled nervously at me as she reached the bottom of the stairs and I watched as her hands immediately crossed in front of her so that she could play with her fingertips.

"Hang on a second," I said to Jeannie, once again not listening to her answer before I reached out and grabbed Bella's wrist, gently dragging her to me.

"Good morning," I said quietly, letting go of her wrist to place my hand on her cheek.

"What's so good about it?" she grumbled, pouting slightly as she leaned into my hand.

"Well, I woke up next to you." I watched the smile reluctantly start to pull at her lips and smiled back. "Always counts as a good morning in my book."

_"Edward! That was the cheesiest thing I think I've ever heard!"_ Jeannie screamed from the phone still clasped in my other hand.

I looked over at it and shook my head, slamming it down a little harder than necessary on the table top before I stood up straight and grabbed Bella's face in both of my hands.

"She's a nice person," I said softly, rubbing my thumbs over her cheeks.

"She sounds it," she grumbled sarcastically, reaching up and gripping my wrists in her hands.

I laughed and shook my head.

"She's only looking out for me. And for you, actually. She wants the truth out there before people start mangling it too much more. You're in my life and it's her job to make sure that my life is protected as much as it possibly can be."

She sighed and nodded, briefly pressing her lips together.

"Put her on speaker?" she asked timidly, her eyes pleading with me. "Stay with me?"

I nodded, leaning down to rest my forehead against hers.

"I made you some coffee," I said quietly. "I know you'll need it today."

She smiled and hummed her appreciation.

"Have I told you how much I love you?"

"Not today."

She laughed and stood up on her toes to press her lips against mine gently.

"I love you," she whispered as she backed down from me.

I kissed her again, tilting my head to the side and pressing my lips more firmly against hers as my thumbs continued their treks across her cheeks.

_"Edward!"_

I groaned, breaking away from her and shaking my head.

The woman had a talent for ruining the perfect moments in my life. It was like she'd taken classes for that shit.

"Do you want some coffee?" she asked, quickly kissing my bottom lip before walking away from me and into the kitchen.

"Sure." I plopped back into the chair and snatched the phone off the table, glaring at it again before punching the speakerphone button. "I'm back, Jeannie."

"Do you have to make everything ten times harder for all parties involved?" she grumbled.

"Who was the one insulting me again?"

She snorted and I rolled my eyes, leaning forward and resting my forehead on the table as I stood the phone upright in the middle of it.

"When can I talk to this girl? Did you hide her from me?"

I heard Bella huff out a breath behind me and looked up to see her placing a cup of coffee in front of me and pursing her lips at the phone. I smiled at her apologetically and sat back, carefully pulling her into my lap so that she didn't spill her own coffee and wrapping my arms around her waist.

"She's right here."

"Well, can I talk to her?" she sighed, clearly getting annoyed with my unintentional avoidance of her questions.

"Hello, Jeannie," Bella said quietly, leaning into me and sipping off her coffee.

I turned one hand down, resting it on her jean-clad thigh and gently moving it down to her knee and back up again.

"It's nice to finally talk to you, Bella. I've heard quite a bit about you."

She turned in my arms, raising an eyebrow at me and I grinned at her, shrugging my shoulders.

"I'm sure you have," she grumbled, gently elbowing my chest again.

"Bella," I whined, leaning forward and resting my lips against her shoulder.

"You're fine."

"I'm glad you think so."

"Okay!" Jeannie exclaimed, breaking us out of the bubble we'd once again started to encase ourselves in to. "Bella, I need some answers."

She kissed me quickly before turning back to the phone. I smiled, licking my lips and faintly tasting the French vanilla creamer I hadn't realized had taken up residence in my refrigerator.

Not that I minded. I'd said it before and I meant it even more now; she was more than welcome to move all of her shit into this house and I really wouldn't give a damn.

"What do you need answered, Jeannie?"

I just smiled and tightened my arms around her waist, turning my head to rest my cheek against her shoulder and close my eyes.

Listening to her talk to Jeannie and answer questions that we'd be reading whenever we dared to pick up a magazine only managed to make this whole damn thing more real to me.

Not that it wasn't real to me before, but this just solidified everything and made me see that the good things in my life weren't illusions.

I hadn't fallen asleep on my first day here and dreamt that all of this was happening; Bella really was sitting in my lap with her coffee mug cupped in her hands as she answered Jeannie's question about what her parents did for a living.

With a pause in the conversation – presumably so that Jeannie could write down everything Bella had just said without interruption – I turned my head again and looked up at her.

She smiled down at me, whatever nerves she'd had before completely gone as she moved one arm and wrapped it around my shoulders.

"I love you," I whispered, one of my hands rubbing up and down her back.

She grinned, leaning down and gently touching her lips to mine as her hand tangled in my hair.

"I love you too," she answered in a whisper, setting her mostly empty coffee cup on the table next to my completely full one.

"And how long do you plan on staying with Edward?" Jeannie's no-nonsense voice broke through.

I quickly looked over at the phone, my eyes widening and Bella's eyes narrowing as she slowly turned back to face it.

The surge of anger that was currently running through my veins was not entirely her fault. I knew there would be quips about our relationship because, to be fair, Jeannie didn't know what Bella and I were like together. All she had was a picture that was taken about a minute and a half before we darted out of the club and came home to have sex on the stairs.

It didn't really show how much I loved her. It merely showcased how much I'd _wanted_ her and in Los Angeles, those two things hardly ever went hand-in-hand.

"Excuse me?" she asked, her voice low.

Not such a good idea, Jeannie. Did you really have to piss her off _today_?

All my plans… every single last one of them…

I sighed heavily and mentally waved them goodbye as they floated away, giggling loudly at me as I rested my forehead against Bella's shoulder.

"How long do you plan on staying with Edward? Is this just something you decided to do one day just to see how far you could get with him?"

"Okay, Jeannie, I think that's enough," I said quickly, swallowing my anger when I heard Bella suck in a deep breath through her nose as the rest of her tensed.

"No!" Bella growled, grabbing my wrist before I could get the phone. "I can understand that you're his agent and I can understand that there are really personal things that need to be splashed across magazines simply because of what he does for a living but don't you _ever_ ask me something like that again. This is not some… some… _fling_; I'm not _using_ him. I'm in love with him."

"Bella," I said quietly, wiggling my wrist out of her grasp to grab her hand and twine our fingers together.

"This is _not_ okay!" she exclaimed, looking back at me and shaking her head. "This is not all right with me."

She ripped her hand out of mine and abruptly stood up, snatching her coffee mug and stalking into the kitchen. I sighed heavily and closed my eyes tightly, leaning forward and resting my head in my hands.

"I didn't mean to offend you, Bella," Jeannie's surprised voice sounded through the phone yet again. "But you did pass that test."

I heard the coffee mug shatter as she slammed it into the sink and winced, wanting nothing more than to be back in that bed where we were about fifteen minutes ago; asleep and more than content with each other.

I'm turning the ringer off of this phone as soon as fucking possible. I'm not doing this again.

"Test?" Bella seethed, standing behind me now. "The way I feel is a _test_ for you?"

"You're not the first person to trick Edward into thinking that you want him for more than the exposure that being with him can grant you."

"Jeannie, that's enough," I growled, opening my eyes to stare at the phone.

It was not the phone's fault that my agent had a twisted, sick way of getting the truth out of people. I had no rational reason to want to throw the phone out of the window and hope that I didn't find it until spring.

"I may not be," Bella answered, her voice still low as they both seemed to ignore me, "but I am probably the first to tell you to fuck off."

I groaned, closing my eyes again and shaking my head.

This was not what I imagined being said when this conversation finally happened between the two of them.

"I have to go," Bella grumbled, leaning down to press a harsh kiss against my cheek before she stood up straight and stormed to the front door.

"Bella, you don't need to be there for another hour!" I exclaimed as I looked at the clock on the microwave.

"I'll find something to do!" she barked out.

I turned around, watching as she struggled to get her shoes on before getting up from the chair and walking over to her.

Jeannie was thankfully very quiet at the moment and I briefly wondered if she'd hung up on us. At this point in time, though, I really didn't care if she was still on the line.

Bella came first.

"Bella…"

"I'll just talk to you later," she grumbled, waving her hand at me as she slipped her shoes on and grabbed her jacket.

"Bella, just wait…"

I reached her and stood by helplessly as she slid the jacket over her shoulders and turned to grab her purse and keys from the table.

She stopped all movement and looked up at me, her eyes boring into mine.

"I love you," she said quietly. "I mean it."

"Bella, I _know_ that. And I love you too! Don't go into work so early, please? Sit here, talk to me."

She nodded once in the direction of the dining room, pursing her lips before looking at me again.

"I'll be home around four."

"Bella…"

"I've already told her to fuck off," she said quietly, breaking her stance and reaching up to run her hand through my slightly drier hair. "I don't want to say anything else that can be held against me."

"She won't! She's just…"

"She's not being fair to me; she's not being fair to us and I refuse to just sit here and listen to it." She dropped her hand and took one step closer to me, leaning up and kissing me softly. "I love you and I'll see you later."

I was back to watching her helplessly as she turned and walked out of the house, closing the door softly behind her.

I listened to hear her truck start up and then rumble off down the road before I turned on my heel and walked back into the dining room to stare the phone down.

"Jeannie," I started quietly, the anger that had been in control quickly slipping out again.

"I like her!" she chirped. "Much better than the other ones."

"That wasn't fair to her!" I screeched, waving my hands around as I began to pace around the dining room again. "That was… that was uncalled for!"

"You're right," she chirped again and I stopped pacing, openly gaping at the phone. "But I got all the answers I needed from her and she really was the only one of your girlfriends to tell me to fuck off when I pushed too hard." She laughed then and I narrowed my eyes. "You've got a good one this time."

"I'm _aware of that_!"

"Well, now I fully believe you. I'll send out a statement to everyone as soon as I get back into the office and you'll have the script and the extra ticket by Tuesday morning."

I hung my head and reached up to rub my temples.

I'm glad that she seemed so happy to have put Bella in a hell of a mood for the rest of the day.

I groaned and ran my hands through my hair, looking up to glare at the phone again.

"Thanks," I said sarcastically.

"You're welcome. Tell Bella when she gets back that I'm very sorry for upsetting her but it needed to be done."

"Mm," I mumbled, pulling at the ends of my hair slightly.

"I'm going to go back to bed for a few hours. Maybe you should do the same."

"Yeah," I mumbled again, closing my eyes tightly before letting my hands fall to my sides again.

Because I'd be able to actually do something as silly as _sleep_ after all of this.

"I'll talk to you soon, Edward. Call me when you've made a decision about the script."

"I will."

"Goodnight."

"'Night," I grumbled, walking closer to the table and snatching the phone off of the table to angrily crush the _off_ button underneath my thumb a few times.

Why had I wanted to become an actor again? It wasn't anything like I thought it would be when I first started out.

Of course, I hadn't imagined the pain in the ass agent I'd end up with or the screaming horde of women that followed me around on a daily basis while I was in California or the long ass hours I'd have to put in just to get a two hour movie made in under six months or the fact that I'd never, _ever_ have a private, personal life again.

I sighed and walked into the living room, flipping on the television as I passed it before collapsing onto the couch and curling up on my side.

There were entirely too many hours to wait for Bella to get back home and after all that had already happened this morning, I was definitely too afraid to leave the house.

God knows what could be waiting around the corner for me if I did.

~*~

I was once again awoken by Bella, nearly jumping out of my skin when I heard her voice in my ear.

I blinked, looking around to find that I was still in the living room, still on the couch and the only addition had been Bella lying in my arms. Squinting, I looked at the DVD player and saw that it was almost six at night and sighed, relaxing again and wrapping my arms tightly around her again.

Even in sleep, I had to have her in my arms.

But how in the hell had I not heard her come in the front door? How had I not felt her when she'd joined me on the couch?

How did I sleep all damn day and still feel as if it wasn't long enough?

Damn Jeannie; screwing up almost everything.

"Edward, wait," she breathed.

I sat up a little, looking down at her face in the glow of the television and swallowed hard, reaching up to run the backs of my fingers down her cheek.

"No, wait, please," she begged, one of her hands reaching out, landing on my chest and her fingers curling into my shirt.

I realized that she was talking in her sleep again and twisted my lips to the side, wondering what she could possibly be dreaming about and why she sounded as though someone had just crushed her toes.

"Bella," I whispered into her ear, still brushing my knuckles down her cheek. "You're okay, Bella. I'm here."

I watched her relax and settled back down, wrapping both of my arms around her again and pulling her even closer to me on the small couch.

"Don't leave me," she whispered, her voice cracking before she buried her nose into my chest and hummed in contentment.

I nearly whimpered, immediately tightening my arms around her and burying my nose into the top of her head as I closed my eyes tightly.

Just like that, I knew what she was dreaming about.

And it broke my fucking heart.


	24. Come On Get Higher

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Sorry that this has taken so damn long! But there were so many things that weren't working the way that I wanted them to. I think I restarted this chapter about ten times before I finally came to rest on this.**

**And I know that I've kind of sucked on replying to all of your reviews; **_**really**_** sorry about that, too. I'm gonna do my best to get that all figured out with this chapter so… don't hate me. I do read every single one of them and honestly, I can't tell you how fucking much I adore every single one of you. You make my damn day.**

**And you all got me to over 900 reviews! Still trying to process that, really.**

**Have a song for this chapter as well; Come On Get Higher by Matt Nathanson.  
**

**Oh, yeah… this chapter? NSFW or school.**

**Enjoy!**

~*~

***Bella***

I stood with him at the airport, my hands clutching onto his arms as we listened to his flight be called over the intercom again.

The past week had been amazing. We'd barely left the house and he'd actually taken me seriously when I said that I'd wanted to christen the dining room table.

That had been fun.

Multiple times.

And now it was the day we'd both been dreading for a week and a half. He was leaving and I had to say goodbye to him.

"Well," he said brightly, a large grin on his lips as he hastily dropped his hands from my waist. "It was a nice trip, Bella. You've been fun."

I blinked at him, digging my nails into his arm as he tried to pry my hands off of him.

_You've __**been**__ fun_? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

"But… what… are you going to call me when you land?" I stuttered, not understanding the complete… stillness on his face.

Not that I expected tears or some big dramatic display, but _some_ kind of recognition that this would be the last time we'd be seeing each other for quite some time would've been nice.

Not the emotionless eyes and mechanical bright smile on his face.

"Nope!" he chirped, shaking his head. "Bella, you have to let me go."

"No," I insisted, only managing to dig my nails in a little deeper.

Eventually he'd start bleeding, but I didn't care. How can he act as though none of this mattered; as if _I_ never mattered? After all that we'd been through up until this point, he was just going to shove me off?

"Why aren't you going to call me?"

"Listen babe, we had our time. It's over now. Thanks for keeping me occupied."

My jaw dropped and I felt my suddenly lifeless hands slipping down his arms as he quickly stepped backward, grabbing his carry-on bag and slinging it over his shoulder.

"What?" I breathed.

"You didn't think this was serious, did you?" He grabbed his boarding pass from his back pocket and slapped it against his free hand a few times as he smirked at me. "Come on, Bella."

"But you said… you… I… you love me."

He threw his head back and laughed loudly, pointing the boarding pass at me and nodding.

"Oh, Bella, I'm an _actor_!" he laughed. "I can make you believe anything."

A breath sobbed out of my lips as I reached up and clawed at my throat, my mouth moving in a sad attempt to say something – _anything_ – to him.

It wasn't working. I couldn't say anything and he was just standing there, watching and laughing at me as I struggled to force air in and out of my lungs.

"Oh, Bella," he laughed, reaching over and actually patting my head as if I were some kind of pet. "You've amused me so. Thank you for that."

I felt my heart break as he turned on his heel and I fell to my knees as I heard him start to whistle something that sounded very familiar when he handed over all of his papers to the security guard standing a few feet away from me.

Even _that guy_ was laughing at me.

"Don't leave me," I managed to choke, one hand reaching out in front of me.

"Oh, I'll be back," he reassured, looking over his shoulder at me. "We can do the whole stairs thing again, okay?"

And with that, he was quickly walking away from me, still whistling that damn familiar song as I leaned forward on the floor, curled in to myself and sobbed my broken heart out.

"Goodbye, Bella… Bella… _Bella_!"

I jumped, flailing my arms at my sides and resisting the arms that I felt around my waist, trapping me in this place.

I needed to go. I couldn't be in this airport anymore. He'd just… he was _gone_. And he didn't _want_ me anymore. Jessica was _right_.

"Bella, hey, come on, love. You're all right, Bella, wake up!"

I finally opened my eyes, realizing that his voice was in my ear as opposed to walking further away from me, my chest heaving with each breath I took as I looked around frantically.

We were in his bedroom. I wasn't in an airport. He wasn't leaving me. I wasn't sobbing on the floor in front of too many people that didn't care that I'd just gotten dumped by the love of my life.

"Bella," he whispered, one of his hands coming up to push hair off of my forehead.

I slowly looked over at him, swallowing hard when I saw the concern etched into the corners of his eyes before I flung myself at him and wrapped myself around him.

His arms tightened around my waist and he buried his nose into my neck, his hands rubbing up and down my back as he whispered into my ear.

"You're okay. I'm here, I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere."

I let out a muffled sob, only realizing then that I'd probably been crying throughout the whole ordeal and buried my face into his bare chest.

"It's okay," he whispered, one of his hands cupping the back of my head and he moved to press his lips against my forehead. "I'm here."

We stayed that way until I calmed down and loosened my death grip around him, keeping my face hidden in his chest.

"You've been asking me not to leave you all night," he whispered against my forehead and I closed my eyes tightly when I heard the slight tremor in his voice. "And then you started crying and… God, Bella."

"I'm sorry," I managed, my voice groggy and raw and resembling something closer to a frog rather than a human being.

"No, don't apologize," he said forcefully and I felt his lips brushing my forehead as he shook his head. "Don't you dare apologize for this."

"I didn't mean…"

"Stop it," he whispered before he shifted and his lips were against mine.

I clung to him again, immediately opening my mouth to his and pressing myself tightly against him. He fisted one hand in my hair and the other in my t-shirt as I threw one of my legs over his.

I needed him. Every part of my body wanted him and needed to feel him underneath me, on top of me, inside of me. I wanted to be completely consumed by him.

It had never been this intense for me before. I'd never had this ache inside of me for someone else. I never knew that it could actually feel like this with someone.

And it had everything and nothing to do with my dream all at the same time. I knew he was here and I knew that he wasn't going anywhere – yet – but it didn't matter. I still needed this.

"Edward," I breathed, pushing him on his back and rolling on top of him.

"Maybe we should…" he started, his hand sliding from my hair to rest on my waist. "Bella, you're…"

"In love with you," I finished quietly, leaning down to kiss his chest.

"And I'm in love with you too, but don't you – oh," he moaned when I ground my hips down against his, "think we should – God."

I kissed my way down his stomach, trailing my lips on the top of his pajama pants, flicking my tongue out against his skin.

"Maybe we should – damn," he breathed as I hooked my fingers into the waistband of his pants and started to pull down on them.

He couldn't just enjoy something, could he?

I sat up, placing my hands on his chest and holding him down as he tried sitting up with me.

"I need you," I said, my voice still raw and rough. "I need you to make it real for me."

"Bella," he said softly, tilting his head to the side and reaching up to place his hands on my shoulders.

"I need you," I said again, feeling his arousal underneath me and slowly moving my hips back and forth. "Edward, I _need you_."

He grabbed my wrists, moving them from his chest and sitting up to press his lips against mine again. He ran his hands up my arms, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. I wrapped my hands around his neck, relaxing into him and opening my mouth to his again.

"I need you too," he whispered, breaking away to kiss a trail to my neck. "God, Bella, I always need you."

I whimpered, running my thumbs down his throat and shifting my hips against his again.

"Hang on to me," he whispered, tightening his arms around my shoulders before turning and laying me down on my side of the bed again.

He situated himself in between my legs, moving his arms from my shoulders to anchor himself above me.

"I'm gonna take my time with you," he whispered again, leaning down to kiss my jaw. "I want to know every curve, every line; every part of you."

I swallowed hard and reached up to tangle my hands in his hair, my eyes rolling back in my head as he kissed down my neck. He made his way down to my chest, kissing through the sweater that I was still wearing from work.

"I don't want to leave you," he mumbled against my stomach, one of his hands moving to slide underneath my sweater and trail up my side. "It might kill me to leave you."

I bit my bottom lip, arching into his touch as his fingers trailed over the wire of my bra.

"So don't," I whispered, shaking my head as he pulled up on the bottom of my sweater.

It was nice – for just a minute – to really believe that those two words would actually be enough to keep him here with me.

"Bella," he whispered, sliding back up my body to kiss me forcefully.

And then it was as if we couldn't wait anymore; my sweater and bra were off before I could comprehend what had really happened and I was sliding his pajama pants and boxers down.

He kicked them off, sliding back down my body and hooking his thumbs into my panties, kissing the inside of my thigh as I lifted my hips to help get them off. He continued to kiss down my leg, pulling my panties off once he'd reached my feet and then switching to my other leg.

I looked up as he sat back on his feet, lifting my leg and placing soft kisses against my ankle.

Every little touch sent flames straight to my stomach, gloriously setting me on fire and alerting me that _this_ was real. This man loved me, he was real and he was _here_.

"Do you know how much I love you?" he whispered, one of his hands trailing down my leg and resting on my thigh, gently kneading the skin there.

I whimpered, fisting my hands into the blankets as I lifted my hips again, begging for him to reach the part of me that desperately needed his attention.

"I never thought it was possible to feel this way for anyone else." He dropped my leg and I was quick to wrap both of my legs around his waist as he hovered over me again. "You bring out the best in me, Bella."

"I love you," I breathed, opening my eyes to meet his and wrapping my arms around his neck again.

One of his hands trailed down my side, running across my hips as he leaned down and softly pressed his lips against mine. His hand trailed down and I moaned loudly as I felt him slide two fingers inside of me.

"Every part of you," he whispered, pulling away from me and resting his forehead against mine.

"Is yours," I moaned, moving my hips against his hand as he started to move his fingers in and out.

"There's no one else for me." He captured my top lip in between his, my hips still working against his hand as pathetic whimpers sounded out of my mouth. "You're it, Bella."

"Stay with me," I all but begged, my arms tightening around his neck. "Don't leave me."

"Bella," he choked, moving from my mouth to bury his head into my neck.

He trailed his lips down to my chest, placing light kisses against my breasts before moving down to my stomach and over to my side. My arms fell to the mattress, fisting in the blanket again as he started to move his hand a little faster.

He kissed over to my other side, moving his mouth up and kissing the side of my breast before his lips were back on my neck.

I threw my head back into the pillow, my hips moving frantically against his hand as I felt the tingling in the pit of my stomach start to intensify. He moved his hand from me and I wanted to cry at the loss of contact before I felt him shift slightly and slide into me.

The moan that sounded out of me couldn't have been natural as I threw my arms around his shoulders again, holding on tightly.

Being with him this way made me feel whole and complete and like I was finally able to fill that piece of me that had always been missing. I hadn't realized that it had been gone until I'd met him and knowing that I'd finally been able to fill that spot in my heart that had been missing for so long was completely satisfying.

Nothing else mattered expect for how he made me feel and that he was with me; that he loved me in a way that no one else ever had before.

"Feel me, Bella," he whispered huskily, his breathing choppy and uneven in my ear as he stayed still. "I'm real and I love you."

I closed my eyes, squeezing them together tightly as I felt tears fill my eyes, my hands closing into fists against his back.

Oh, God, he was it. I knew, in that moment, that no one would ever be able to make me feel this way. I would never be able to be with anyone else because Edward was all that there was for me.

And having to live without him for the months in between visits would probably kill me but for him, I'd wait. I'd wait for as long as I had to just to be with him again.

And if that meant having to wait for the better part of the rest of my life, I knew that he was worth it. He'd be worth all the pain and the heart ache I'd suffer when he was gone because I knew that he'd be there, waiting for me the same way that I was waiting for him.

And the rest of the world – the people that would try tearing us apart and beating us down – would just have to deal with it because we are stronger than they are. We have something most people only dream about and I'd be damned if I let them take that away from me.

"No matter how far apart we are," he started, echoing my thoughts as he slowly pulled out and pushed back in again, "I love you."

"I love you too," I whispered, shifting my hips against his and moaning into his chest.

He kept his slow pace, his hand roaming over my stomach and chest, his thumb flicking over my nipples and making me arch my back as our hips moved together.

"Only you, Bella," he grunted, his hips starting to move more frantically against mine. "I'm yours."

I unclenched my fists only to dig my fingernails into his back as I met every thrust of his hips with my own, the sounds emitting from my throat growing more frequent and louder.

I tightened my legs around his waist and moaned loudly when he managed to slide deeper into me.

His lips found mine, his tongue invading my mouth as he started moving faster into me, his hand gripping tightly onto my waist. I grabbed onto his shoulders, biting down onto his bottom lip as I felt my entire body starting to shake.

"Yes," he moaned, tearing his mouth from mine to bury his head into my neck again. "Yes, Bella, yes."

The hand he had on my waist moved in between us, finding and rubbing against my clit and I screamed, my entire body arching into his as my mind cleared completely and focused only on the way he felt inside of me.

I heard him cry out into my neck after a few more thrusts and felt him stiffen, his mouth latching onto my neck and his tongue slowly sliding across my skin before he collapsed on top of me.

I stayed wrapped around him, my chest heaving against his as I ran my hands up and down his back.

"I'm never moving," he finally mumbled, nuzzling his head into my hair and sliding his arms underneath me to hold me tightly.

"I'm okay with that," I laughed, my voice a little shaky and watery as I pressed a line of kisses against his shoulder.

"You wanna talk to me about that dream?" he asked softly, turning his head to press a soft kiss against my ear.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes tightly, biting my bottom lip and stilling my hands to wrap them tightly around his shoulders again.

No, I really didn't want to tell him all the horrid details. It was only going to taint what had just happened and while I knew that it was going to come up in conversation at some point during the day, I'd really hoped to put it off until the very last minute.

I had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't let me up if I didn't, though. And while normally I'd be all for staying in bed with him all day, I figured that he wouldn't stop asking me about the dream until I finally caved.

"What did you hear?" I asked quietly.

"Enough," he whispered, kissing my ear again. "Tell me, Bella."

I swallowed hard and squeezed his shoulders, sucking in a deep breath and burying my nose into his shoulder.

"You were leaving," I finally whispered, "and you didn't care. You said that you were an actor and you could make me believe anything. Even that you loved me."

"Bella…" he whispered, shaking his head and squeezing me tightly. "No. You know that…"

"It's okay!" I said quickly, shaking my head. "I came to a conclusion."

"When?" he asked slowly.

"About five minutes ago."

He was quiet.

"Did I bore you?" he asked dryly.

"What?"

"I'm… we're… I was… you were _thinking_ during that?"

He moved his arms from around me and I continued to cling to him, biting my bottom lip to stop the sudden and completely inappropriate giggles that threatened to come forth.

"Need I remind you that _you_ were the demanding one?" he continued, still trying to sit up even as I kept my arms tightly around his shoulders and my legs around his waist, refusing to release him. "I wanted to talk and _you_ wanted to jump me!"

"Which I did," I said easily.

"Bella!" he exclaimed, his voice exasperated as he slid out of me.

I whimpered and huffed, my legs still wrapped around his waist and my arms still locked around his shoulders.

"You were seriously _thinking_ during that? What the… Bella… why did you… does it clear your mind or something?"

"One of the perks of sex, I suppose, yeah."

"You're killing me," he groaned, giving in and flopping back on top of me to bury his head into the pillow.

"Are you done with your tirade?" I asked softly, reaching up with one hand to absently trail my fingers through his hair.

"You're damned and determined to ruin my ego, aren't you?" he grumbled. "You're halfway there, you know. Maybe if you just told me how much I really suck in bed, I'll be back to the awkward teenage boy I used to be. Were you faking?"

He didn't give me any time to react before he lurched up, his eyes wide and frantic as he looked down at me.

"Bella, if you were faking, I can do better… I can… you just… I…"

I placed a hand over his mouth, not able to fight the bark of laughter that slipped through my lips even as his eyes narrowed at me.

"I'm glad you find this amusing," he grumbled, rolling off of me and onto his side of the bed, crossing his arms over his chest and staring hard at the ceiling.

I untangled my legs from his and turned on my side, rolling half on top of him and propping myself up on my elbow to look down at him.

"Now are you finished?" I asked softly, placing my other hand over his heart and splaying my fingers out.

It was beating rapidly against my hand and I bit my bottom lip, starting to feel a little guilty. He didn't really think any of what he was saying was true, did he?

He just grunted, still staring at the ceiling, and I took that as a _yes_.

"Would you like to hear my conclusion?"

He grunted again and I felt his heartbeat pick up the pace a little. I tilted my head to the side, leaning down and pressing my lips against the spot below his ear.

"I'm yours," I whispered, keeping my lips against his skin. "I love you and despite what you're thinking about me right now, I know that you love me too. And we are going to have a lot to deal with, especially when you leave."

I moved my hand from his chest, running it up his throat before reaching around and cupping his cheek.

"And it's not going to be easy and I'm going to miss you every second of every day." I moved my head, lightly kissing his jaw as I traced his lips with my thumb. "But I'll wait forever for you, Edward. I'm not going anywhere and even if you do leave me at the airport the way you did in my dream, you're not getting rid of me."

I felt him relax underneath me and smiled softly, placing one more kiss against his jaw.

"Bella," he whispered, turning his head and gently touching his lips to mine.

"If that means turning into one of your stalker fans, I'll do it. You said that I was it for you and I'm holding you to that."

"You know I meant that," he said softly, turning on his side to face me and reaching up to place one of his hands on mine.

"And know that I mean it with everything inside of me when I say that you're it for me too," I whispered, leaning in to rest my forehead on his.

He closed his eyes and I heard his sharp intake of breath before his lips were on mine again, lazily dragging them across and twisting our fingers together.

"I don't ever want to know life without you," I whispered, squeezing his hand as I backed away. "I don't think I could handle it."

"You won't have to." He shook his hand out of mine, snaking his arms around my waist and pulling me against him again. "I'll never leave you that way."

I curled myself around him again, burying my face into his shoulder and slowly dragging my fingertips up and down his back.

"So," he started, his voice low as he tangled his hands in my hair, "you weren't faking, right?"

I laughed loudly, squeezing my arms around his shoulders as I shook my head and kissed the bottom of his ear.

"I'm a crappy actress, Edward."

It was his turn to laugh loudly into my neck, his hands roaming freely around my back and I smiled, getting as close to him as I possibly could and closing my eyes.

"And oh, how I love you for it."

He kissed my shoulder, squeezing me once before his hands continued their random patterns on my back.

"Can we stay here all day?"

"Mm," he mumbled, dragging his nose against my jaw before leaning back. "I have something planned for us today."

I slowly opened my eyes, closing the distance between us and resting my forehead against his again.

"What kind of plans?"

"Surprise plans," he grinned, nudging his nose against mine.

"I'm not such a big fan of surprises."

"Trust me with this," he whispered, brushing his lips against mine and causing my eyes to flutter closed again. "You'll like this surprise."

"Is this the only one of the week?"

"Not by a long shot," he laughed, kissing me softly. "But the rest of them can be easily done in the house."

I whimpered a little and listened to him laugh, my own lips curling up at the corners despite how much I wanted to argue with him about this new development.

I'd never been a big fan of surprises, no matter who the one was surprising me. There was just something mind-numbingly terrifying to me about not knowing what was coming my way or when.

Add in my complete inability to stay on my own two feet most of the time and the result was never something good.

"I think you should tell me."

"Nah," he mumbled, his lips brushing against mine as he spoke. "There are a lot of things I want to do for the woman I love this week." I shivered from his words, somehow managing to get even closer to him. "And I'm really hoping that she'll let me."

I opened one eye to look over his shoulder at the alarm clock before snapping my eye shut and wiggling one of my legs in between his. He hissed and I smiled, my lips meeting his again.

"What time do we need to go?"

"Appointment's at seven-thirty," he mumbled, slowly moving his hips against mine.

"Good," I whispered before moving my hands in between us and pushing on his chest, crawling on top of him when he was flat on his back. "Then we've got plenty of time."

~*~

"Can I take this off yet?"

"No."

I huffed, childishly crossing my arms over my chest as I stared straight ahead at black nothingness and listened to him chuckle under his breath.

After finally getting out of bed, we'd taken a shower together and had quickly gotten dressed once Edward noticed that our activities had taken quite a bit longer than either of us had anticipated.

I wasn't complaining. Despite the dream I'd had that had led us to that point, it was probably one of the best mornings of my life.

Once we'd gotten into the truck – because neither of us had dug out the Volvo quite yet and it was too cold for any of the snow to even think about melting enough to drive over it – he'd pulled the bandana out of his jacket pocket, asked me if I trusted him and then wrapped it around my eyes.

I was sorely regretting my positive answer to his question. I was regretting even more my decision to let him surprise me.

And what the hell was even open at seven thirty in the morning? What could we possibly be expected to do this early in the morning?

And _why_ wouldn't he let me _see any of it?_

"We're almost there, love," he chuckled and I jumped when I felt his hand on my knee.

He only laughed a little more and I scowled in the general direction of the driver's side of my truck.

"You'll forgive me for this, won't you?" he asked, his voice sweet and innocent as he squeezed my knee.

"It depends on what you've got me walking in to," I grumbled, huffing again.

"Would I ever hurt you?"

"No."

"Would I ever make you do something that you really didn't want to do or wouldn't enjoy?"

"No."

"Would I ever do this if it wasn't important?"

"Maybe."

"Bella!" he exclaimed, laughing and moving his hand to squeeze the back of my knee.

I screeched, kicking my leg out and trying to curl up against the door, away from him.

If I'd had enough common sense – and really had a death wish – I'd just take the damn bandana off. Nothing was stopping me from it. Aside from the fact that the look on Edward's face before he'd slipped it over my eyes reminded me of something extremely pure and almost innocent, there was absolutely nothing stopping me from taking it off.

I sighed loudly, surrendering to my thoughts before scooting back into my seat and facing forward again.

I couldn't resist a mostly pure and sort of innocent Edward getting that excited about something that he wanted to do for me. Or show me.

I wasn't really sure what this whole thing was all about and no matter what I did – or where I'd touched him – he wasn't giving in.

It was maddening and slightly exciting all at the same time.

Plus, it smelled like his shampoo. And I loved that shit.

The truck came to a stop and then he turned it off. I heard his clothes rustling as he moved and hoped for just a second that he was going to take this damn thing off of my eyes.

"You love me, right?"

So much for that hope and I rolled my eyes in vein.

"Is the sky blue?" I shot back.

He hummed and I felt the heat radiating off of him as he leaned over me. I licked my lips without really thinking about it, dropping my arms to my lap with my hands turned palm up.

"It's actually more of a grey color right now," he quipped, and the warmth coming from him disappeared as he leaned back from me.

I pursed my lips in irritation, folding my hands together and grumbling words I didn't even understand under my breath.

"I think it might even snow!" he exclaimed cheerfully. "But you didn't answer my question, Bella."

"_Yes_, I love you, you jackass."

I jumped back when his lips were suddenly on mine and narrowed my eyes against the blackness when he laughed at me.

"And you trust me, right?" he mumbled, peppering kisses along my cheek.

"Will it get this thing off of me?"

"Maybe."

I growled and he laughed, kissing me again, his hands coming up to frame my face as his lips became a little more forceful and urgent.

I relented enough and reached up as well, carefully placing my hands on the back of his head and twisting my fingers into his hair. I heard him slide closer to me on the bench seat, his hands moving from my face until his arms were around my waist and he was pulling me against him.

"You trust me, right?" he whispered, breaking away from me.

"I already told you that I did," I grumbled, huffing slightly and leaning forward again.

"Just wanted to make sure." He kissed me quickly and chastely before I felt and heard him moving away from me. "Don't move."

"Where the hell am I gonna go?"

He only laughed again and I sat back against the seat, rolling my eyes and crossing my arms over my chest again.

He was incredibly lucky that I loved him as much as I did. There weren't many people that I'd let blindfold me and lead me into a possible lion's den.

Okay, there wasn't _anyone_ that I'd let lead me blindfolded into a lion's den. I'd rather chew off my own foot than trust anyone else enough to lead me blindly around God knows where while holding all the important information from me.

I jumped when the door next to me opened and reached out, swinging my arm at air as I heard him laughing at me again.

This was getting old. Fast.

"Would you like me to carry you or do you think you can walk?"

"I can walk," I barked, sliding as close to his voice as I dared.

I didn't need to fall out of the damn truck. That would just give him more reason to laugh at me and prove that I was completely incompetent when I wasn't able to see anything.

He put his hands on my waist and guided me down from the truck, keeping one arm around me as I heard him close the door.

"Lock it?"

"Locked."

"Got the keys?" I asked, linking our fingers tightly together as he grabbed my hand.

"Everything is taken care of, love," he said softly, kissing my ear. "Just relax."

"Do you want me to blindfold you?" I snapped.

"I'm not opposed to it," he said easily.

I squeaked when he squeezed me against him and lifted my feet off of the ground, placing me back on what I could only assume was the sidewalk.

"I just might," I grumbled, holding on tightly to his hand as he slowed our steps.

"I'm up for it," he whispered into my ear before he knocked on what I assumed was a door.

I shivered, anticipation shooting straight down through my stomach and in between my thighs.

And I wanted to smack myself. Really, after two times this morning and an almost third in the shower before he reminded me what time it was, I was still ready for him?

I think there was something wrong with me. This never happened. I never acted this way. I'd never _wanted_ this way.

And before I had time to say anything else, he was ushering me forward into I don't know what and I could hear him snickering behind my back, an extra set of footsteps garnering my attention as we walked onto hardwood floors.

Heels. So, this extra set of footsteps was a woman. And she was in on this whole thing while I was still – quite literally – in the dark about all of it.

I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

"Okay, love," he finally said, his voice echoing around the room and I heard a door being shut and locked behind us. "You can't get mad."

"I don't like the sound of this," I grumbled.

"You are perfectly fine, okay? I'm right here," he whispered, ghosting a kiss against the side of my neck as he moved from my side to stand behind me.

"Are you finally taking this damn thing off?" I asked, forced to swallow hard when his kiss caused the complete inability to speak.

"Yes," he laughed.

I heard the heels moving around the room again and pursed my lips, anxiously tapping my toes against the floor as he untied the knot at the back of my head at a snail's pace.

"I love you," he whispered, kissing the back of my neck before the blindfold disappeared from my eyes.

I squinted, massive little lights shining directly into my poor unsuspecting eyes. Groaning, I reached up and rubbed the heels of my hands into them, Edward's hands on my shoulders.

"You okay?" he asked softly.

"Mhmm," I mumbled, dropping my hands and opening my eyes into little slits.

My mouth dropped open a little, a small whimper making its way out of my mouth as I recognized Angela's portrait studio, completely covered in white Christmas lights. Every spare inch of the spacious room and its walls were covered in tiny lights, winking at me as I gaped at Angela, standing on the other side of the room behind her camera and grinning at me.

I turned around, slowly taking a step back and looking behind Edward to see that a seamless white background was behind us, all of her professional lights set up and merely waiting to be turned on. More Christmas lights were strewn across the background and I noticed that all of the windows – including the huge one that let everyone walking by her store see into it – were covered with black paper, successfully keeping prying eyes out.

I finally focused on Edward to see that he was nervously fidgeting with the bandana as he watched me.

"You… pictures? Of us?"

He nodded almost sheepishly, even ducking his head a little bit.

"So that we'll have something better than picture phone photos to look at when I'm gone."

I breathed out a laugh and launched myself into his arms, wrapping them tightly around his neck and pressing my lips forcefully against his. I saw the lights come up behind us from behind my closed eyes and then heard Angela's heels on the floor as she walked over to us. His arms were quickly around my waist, his lips just as urgent against mine as he turned us to the side.

"Drop the bandana, Edward," Angela demanded quietly.

I could only assume that he had, as his hands were suddenly splayed out on my back and pulling me even closer to him. I saw all the lights flash when I heard the shutter as she took the picture and smiled against his lips before stepping back down.

"This was a good idea then, right?" he asked softly.

I laughed and nodded, kissing him quickly once before walking out of his arms, kicking the bandana out of the way and standing in front of Angela. She stood up straight and let the camera hang around her neck as she grinned brightly at me.

"I owe you."

"You owe me nothing, my dearest friend." She slung an arm around my shoulders. "Your hot actor neighbor boy has offered to pose for me and that's all the payment I need."

He scoffed from behind us, mumbling something about the new nickname she'd just given him.

"Angela…" I said quickly, looking over at her and shaking my head.

"Bella, I've already tried," Edward laughed from behind us. "She won't take my money."

"Your money's no good here!" she declared, moving her arm from my shoulders and walking over to the stereo in the corner of the room. "Your photos, however, are priceless."

I smiled slowly when I heard the drums start, clearly indicating a song that Angela had recently declared she was in love with. And to be perfectly honest, the six thousand times or so that I'd heard it hadn't been all that bad.

I'd also realized that it was damn impossible not to want to dance and feel incredibly happy while listening to it.

Oh, yes, Angela knew exactly what she was doing.

"Be natural, you guys," she said conversationally as she started to walk back towards us. "I'm just a spectator."

_"I miss the sound of your voice, and I miss the rush of your skin."_

I turned back to Edward, kicking out of my shoes and holding out my hand to him. He laughed and grabbed my hand in his, pulling me against him and slowly starting to move with me.

_"And I miss the still of the silence, as you breathe out and I breathe in."_

I laughed and let him twirl me around, barely noticing when Angela started moving around us in slow circles, the lights flashing every time she pushed the button on the camera.

_"If I could walk on water, if I could tell you what's next, I'd make you believe, I'd make you forget."_

He twirled me back into his arms, swaying side to side with me and resting his forehead against mine as he grinned down at me. I laughed, my heart suddenly feeling lighter than it had in longer than I could remember.

_"So come on, get higher, loosen my lips. Faith and desire and the swing of your hips. Just pull me down hard and drown me in love."_

"Hey, Edward, twirl her again," Angela suggested from her crouched down position on the floor in front of us.

He did as she asked and I laughed, our hands connected as I grinned and looked at him over the space of our arms.

_"So come on, get higher, loosen my lips. Faith and desire and the swing of your hips. Just pull me down hard and drown me in love."_

He pulled me back to him, his grin still in place as he pressed my back against his chest and wrapped his arms around my waist. I leaned my head back against his shoulder, closing my eyes and placing my hands on his.

_"I miss the sound of your voice, loudest thing in my head. And I ache to remember, all the violent, sweet, perfect words that you said."_

He rested his chin in the crook of my neck, already having a feel to the song as he hummed into my ear and swayed from side to side with me. I turned my head, pressing a lingering kiss to his cheek.

_"If I could walk on water, if I could tell you what's next, I'd make you believe, I'd make you forget."_

"I believe in you," I whispered into his ear.

He squeezed my waist before lowering his lips to my neck and keeping them there as the lights flashed again.

_"So come on, get higher, loosen my lips. Faith and desire and the swing of your hips. Just pull me down hard and drown me in love."_

I hummed before twirling out of his arms again and raising my own above my head, swinging my hips and throwing my head back. I heard him let out a choked laugh and smiled evilly to myself, opening my eyes to see Angela right behind me.

She laughed as well, shaking her head as she snapped the next picture.

_"So come on, get higher, loosen my lips. Faith and desire and the swing of your hips. Just pull me down hard and drown me in love."_

He finally walked over to me, grabbing my hips and pulling me against him. I grinned and dropped my arms around his neck, shaking my hair out of my face and looking up at him.

"This song fits us, you know," he said softly, running his hands up my sides to rest them on my waist.

_"I miss the pull of your heart, I taste the sparks on your tongue. I see angels and devils and God, when you come on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on."_

I put my hands on his cheeks, running my thumbs over the bridge of his nose and smiling softly as I nodded.

"I'm holding on," I whispered, moving my hands as I stepped up and kissed him softly. "Tightly."

He laughed and bent down slightly, grabbing me behind my thighs and lifting me up. I screeched, laughing loudly as I wrapped my legs around his waist and placed my hands on his shoulders.

_"So come on, get higher, loosen my lips. Faith and desire and the swing of your hips. Just pull me down hard and drown me in love."_

"Seriously, you two are fucking perfect together," Angela declared, the flashes going off as she rounded us, her finger firmly planted on the shutter button.

"Yeah," Edward smiled, nodding as he looked up at me. "We really fucking are."

I looked down at him, smiling stupidly and wrapping my arms around his neck to kiss him loudly.

The last few words of the song only made me hold on to him a little tighter as he started dancing on his own, laughing against my mouth as he wiggled his hips.

_"'Cause everything works, love. Everything works in your arms."_


	25. Chapter 25

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Okay, I have a few announcements that I'd like to get out of the way before you read the chapter.**

***clears throat***

**A lovely lady (Cartnee) has graciously started a thread over at the Twilighted boards for this story and I am fucking thrilled about it. Feel free to stop over there and discuss; I tend to stalk that place more now than I did before.**

**I've made a few banners for this story as well. There are some on my LiveJournal (link on profile) or they've also been posted in the thread at Twilighted, so feel free to steal those if you feel so inclined. They're not great by any means and they're a lot bigger than I originally thought they'd be, but I'm rather fond of them.**

**All right, end of announcements. I thought I had more. Meh…**

**Onto the gushing! You guys are totally off-the-charts all kinds of beautifully amazing. To all the people recommending me on lion_lamb, in their stories, on different message boards and anywhere else, I bow down to you. I didn't get a chance to reply to all of the reviews, but again, I do read them and I adore you all more than words can possibly say.**

**I'm squealing… **_**over**__** one thousand reviews**_** with the last chapter. I have no words. Strawberry shortcake doesn't even compare to you guys.**

**Okay, now I'm done. Enjoy!**

~*~

***Edward***

I jumped back from the stove as the pancake batter popped at me and growled at the pan, shaking my spatula angrily at it.

This was the third batch of pancakes that I'd attempted to make this morning.

If I got something splattered on my chest one more time, I was going to give in to Bella and let her cook; something that I told her I was more than capable of no matter what she'd previously been witness to.

Besides, it had taken me almost an hour to convince her that I could cook something without setting the house on fire. I'd made her grilled cheese sandwiches for Christ's sake – I was more than capable of making something for breakfast.

This was her day. She'd had one all about me and now I was going to have one all about her. And that meant cooking breakfast for her.

I stared down at the bubbling batter and twisted my lips to the side, tilting my head and swinging the spatula back and forth.

Maybe it was time to pull out those frozen Jimmy Dean sandwiches I'd bought when we went shopping. They'd probably be more appetizing than what I was currently staring at.

Really, how hard is it to make pancakes? Mix, pour and then put it in a pan for it to bake. It was _not_ rocket science.

So why did it look like some foreign substance I was trying to pass off as food?

Sighing heavily, I flipped the knob and set the pan on one of the back burners, slapping the spatula in the middle of the stove before walking over to the freezer.

"I could starve up there, you know."

I jumped and turned to look at her as she stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb with her arms crossed over her chest and a wry smile on her face.

"In bed!" I exclaimed, pointing over her head toward the stairs. "You weren't supposed to move."

"You've been down here for an hour."

"They're not as easy as they look, you know," I grumbled, pouting slightly as I slumped against the refrigerator.

"Poor baby," she mocked, pushing off of the doorjamb and walking over to me. "I think maybe I need to give you some serious cooking lessons. How are you gonna survive without me?"

I reached out and grabbed her, smiling sadly as she squeaked and fell against me when I wrapped my arms around her shoulders. Her arms wrapped around my waist and she rested her head on my chest once she stood up straight and I closed my eyes tightly.

How _was_ I going to survive without her? Well, rationally, I knew that I'd be able to. I'd go on with my life once I wasn't here anymore, and I'd go on with my job and make movies and attend premieres and talk to all the people in my life that I'd be forced to deal with the same as I'd been doing before Bella.

But I knew that it wouldn't be the same. I wouldn't feel the same, I wouldn't be able to concentrate the same way that I once had and absolutely everything would be different.

_I_ was different. And it all had to do with the woman in my arms.

While her question was more than likely rhetorical or meant to make me laugh, it only managed to hit home. This was our last week together. A handful of days that would pass by too quickly and then I'd be on a plane bound for Washington.

"Come with me," I whispered, leaning down to bury my face in her hair. "Please, Bella, just come back with me."

Her arms tightened around my waist and she stepped into me even further.

"You know that I can't," she whispered back.

"Why? You can open up your own bookstore in California and I know you'll be successful! None of this season downtime because you'll always be busy! You'll be so good out there and…" I trailed off, swallowing hard and tightening my arms around her shoulders. "And we'll be together."

"You have no idea how much I'd love that," she said softly, shifting slightly and I felt her lips on my chest. "But there's just… Charlie's here and Angela and Rose and the bookstore has been in my family for a long time, Edward. I can't just leave it."

"Isn't there anyone else that could take over for you? Someone you trust?"

"All the people I trust already have full time jobs of their own. It's only me."

"Any other relatives willing to look after it?"

"My parents were only children. I don't have any cousins or aunts and uncles. The bookstore is mine, Edward, and I can't leave it. I'm sorry."

I squeezed my eyes together a little more tightly, burying my nose into her hair and shaking my head.

"Don't be sorry," I whispered into her ear, sucking in a ragged breath. "I know that you can't leave it, I just…"

"I know," she said quietly, pressing a lingering kiss against my chest.

We were both quiet, standing against the cold refrigerator and hanging on for what felt like hours before she finally pulled back and moved her arms from my waist to place her hands on my cheeks.

I slowly opened my eyes to look down into hers and sighed heavily before making an effort to smile at her.

"Hey," she said softly, tilting her head at me and slowly dragging her hands back to tangle in my hair. "We're gonna be fine."

"I'm just gonna miss you, Bella," I whispered, reaching up to push a piece of her unruly hair out of her eyes. "I've gotten used to you."

I attempted to laugh but when it came out forced and sounding more like a dying dog, I frowned and closed my eyes again. I felt her shift in my arms before her lips were softly against mine and her fingernails were gently scraping against the back of my scalp.

I sighed against her lips, tracing my tongue along her top lip before she backed away from me.

"We have some time to figure everything out, okay?" she asked softly, her fingernails still making small trails up and down the back of my head. "Until then… make me breakfast."

I opened my eyes and looked down at her, not able to keep the frown on my face when I saw her bright smile.

God damn it, how was I supposed to live without that?

"As long as you go back upstairs," I bargained, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "This is your day, Bella."

"You got any good movies?" she asked suddenly.

"Uhm," I blinked, shaking my head and trying to remember all of the movies that I had here. "No."

"I'll make a deal with you," she started conversationally, her hands moving from my hair to link behind my neck.

"What deal?"

"I'll leave you alone to make breakfast as long as when we're finished, we go down to the movie store and pick out a few movies to watch for the rest of the day."

I shrugged, nodding.

I could deal with that. Spending the whole day inside with Bella watching movies; very normal, very relaxing and probably a day the both of us could really use.

"Yeah, all right."

"Okay then."

She smiled at me again, standing up on her toes to kiss me once more before she walked out of my arms and out of the kitchen.

I stayed leaning against the refrigerator, running my hands over my face and taking deep breaths in an effort to keep my thoughts from turning back into the direction they'd just barely gotten out of.

I still had time. It was passing by quickly, but at least I still had some time left with her. And I would do everything in my power to make these last days as memorable as fucking possible.

She couldn't come with me; I'd known that before I'd even asked but it was worth a shot. She had a life here the same way that I had a life in California and neither of us could just leave them no matter how much we may have wanted to.

But God damn it if I wasn't thinking about giving up my entire career just to stay with this woman.

She was everything I hadn't been aware that I was looking for. She kept me grounded and she loved me in a way that I'd never even known existed.

She had quite easily become the most important thing in my life and if it came down to it, I would gladly walk away from everything out in California just to be with her for the rest of my damn life.

Because, honestly, I had no life without her.

Taking one more deep breath, I pushed off from the refrigerator and turned to open the freezer, grabbing the red and yellow box out of it before walking over to the counter.

It was physically impossible to fuck up pre-made breakfast sandwiches and while I'm sure she'd bitch about it the entire time she was eating it, at least the house would still be in one piece and I wouldn't be poisoning her with the toxic pancake mix still sitting in the pan on the stove.

~*~

"I'm driving!" she declared, bouncing into the living room with one arm over her head and snatching the keys off of the table near the door.

I huffed at her, pulling my jacket over my shoulders and pursing my lips at her.

She'd complained about the sandwich but once I'd shown her the pan of what should've been pancakes, she'd quickly taken it back and eaten the greasy round thing that I'd plopped onto a plate without another word.

And then she'd suggested that we get take out for dinner that night, since I wasn't letting her do much of anything for the rest of the day. I wasn't opposed to it – the less time I spent trying not to burn the house down, the better off we both were.

We finished breakfast and then she got into the shower while I did the dishes and let the almost-pancakes soak before surprising her in the shower and nearly giving her a concussion.

Another note to self: scaring the shit out of her in the shower was _not_ a good idea. Especially since she'd just washed the shampoo out of her hair and the bottom of the tub was worse than an ice rink.

It was a very good thing that at least one of us had decent reflexes when needed.

"We really need to dig out the Volvo."

"Nah," she shook her head, grinning as she bounced on her heels. "It's perfectly fine where it is."

I rolled my eyes and laughed before walking over to her and hooking an arm around her waist.

"Pretty sure I'm gonna need to get gas before Monday."

She shook her head again, wrapping her arms around my neck and smiling.

"If we don't dig it out, you can't leave."

I swallowed the pain that shot up my throat and leaned down to kiss her softly, pulling her tight against me and wrapping both of my arms around her.

"You know that I…"

"I know," she said quickly, putting a hand over my mouth as she stepped down from me. "Later."

"We really need to talk about it."

"Later," she said again, stepping out of my arms and grabbing the doorknob in her hand. "I'm not ready for it yet."

"I'm not either, Bella, but we really need to…"

We both jumped when a knock sounded through the door and Bella immediately snatched her hand back, slowly sidestepping to stand next to me again.

"Rose and Angela are at work?" I asked quietly.

She nodded, looking up at me quickly before looking back to the door.

"Go into the dining room."

"Edward…"

"Please," I begged, looking down at her. "If someone's found out where I am, I don't want you to be interrogated, too."

"You can call the police, Edward. You don't have to deal with it. This is your property."

"And I will if I have to. Please, the dining room."

She huffed and nodded, stalking into the dining room. I could already tell that she was just standing in the doorway, in plain sight to whoever would be at the front door.

She was absolutely frustrating.

And I love her more than anything in the world.

Sighing heavily, I pressed myself against the door, squinting through the peephole to see a man with a package and that damn mechanical signing machine in his hand, dressed in the standard UPS brown uniform.

I breathed out a sigh of relief as I stepped back onto the heels of my feet and pulled the door open, watching as the guy's eyes widened.

"Mason Edwards?" he stuttered, slowly holding out the package and machine to me.

I blinked, absently nodding as I slowly took the machine and scrawled the name on the digital line once I realized that Jeannie was an absolute genius.

Using my mother's maiden name and my first name as my last name was quite possibly the most brilliant thing she'd ever done.

"Do you know that you look _exactly_ like Edward Cullen?" he finally asked, seeming to recover from the initial shock he had momentarily been in.

"Uh, yeah, I get that a lot," I grumbled, taking the package from him. "Thank you."

He nodded, shaking his head and chuckling to himself as he walked down the porch steps and over to his truck.

"How did we not hear that?" I asked as I closed the door to find that she was standing exactly where I'd predicted.

She shrugged, laughing nervously before walking over to me and looking down at the package.

"Who's it from?"

"Jeannie."

She cringed and I snorted.

"What's in it?" she asked, playfully narrowing her eyes at me.

"A script she wants me to look over and Jessica's ticket for the premiere."

She nodded, her bottom lip curled in between her teeth as she swung her keys around her pointer finger.

"Everything okay?" I asked slowly, setting the package on the rocking chair.

"You're not… you're not going _with_ her, right? She's not gonna be your date or anything, is she?"

I stared at her before reaching out and pulling her into my arms, burying my nose into her neck and waiting for her arms to come up around my waist.

"She's gonna be behind the barricades for the red carpet and I'm pretty sure she'll be up in the balcony for the actual movie. I won't be anywhere near her, Bella."

She nodded, nuzzling her cheek against my chest and sighing out a deep breath.

"I can't stand her for two seconds when I see her to begin with; do you really think I'd be able to tolerate her for an entire night?"

"Try working with her," she grumbled.

I laughed and kissed the top of her head, squeezing her one more time before backing away slightly.

"What do you say to those movies?"

"Don't you need to read the script?"

I shook my head, reaching up and pushing hair behind her ear.

"I've already got plans with someone ten times more interesting than any stupid script."

She grinned up at me, stepping up on her toes and kissing me softly.

"I'm still driving."

And with that, she took off out of the house and was running down the stairs of the porch before I even had the chance to think clearly. Laughing, I shook my head, locked the door and walked out in enough time to see her climbing into the truck.

Once I'd gotten into the truck with her, still laughing and shaking my head as she bounced up and down in the seat like a little child excited for her birthday, we made our way down to the local Blockbuster and walked in, hand-in-hand.

"Anything specific you want to see?" I asked, letting the glass door slam shut behind me.

Thankfully, there weren't that many people wandering around the rather small store and I felt the tension I hadn't realized I'd been feeling drain out of my shoulders.

Probably had a lot to do with the fact that it was only one in the afternoon on a Tuesday, too.

"Something funny," she stated, pulling me with her as she headed toward the comedy aisle.

"Funny _ha-ha­ _or _this is so bad that it's funny_?" I asked, looking over the movie titles when she came to a stop.

"Maybe both."

I nodded, looking over my shoulder when I heard something fall to the ground behind us. I cringed, seeing the salesgirl coming out of a door with what had been a box of videos at her feet, cases spilling out on the floor in front of her.

"Shit," I whispered, nervously running a hand through my hair and smiling awkwardly at the girl that was gawking back at me.

She continued to stand there, her mouth moving up and down and her eyes shifting back and forth between the front door and the back of the store for some odd reason that I couldn't even begin to try deciphering.

I nearly jumped ten feet in the air when I felt Bella's hand slip into mine, her fingers twining with mine as she squeezed lightly.

"You're okay," she whispered, pressing a soft kiss against my arm.

I don't know why the hell I was getting nervous about one person seeing me. I'd been living in this town for a year – on and off – and while I could usually walk around without any problems, there was always that one person that had to make a bit of a scene.

So why in the hell was I so damn jumpy about it?

"This one looks good."

I shook my head slightly, offering the gawking employee a small smile before turning to see what had caught Bella's interest.

"Yeah, okay," I said, my voice unusually high before I cleared my throat.

She laughed and squeezed my hand again, looking up at me and smirking.

"We're fine," she whispered, gently knocking my arm with her shoulder before turning her attention back to the movie case.

I grunted and looked over the movie rack we were standing behind to see that the girl had finally come out of it and was bending down to pick up the movies that had scattered once the box had hit the floor.

She wasn't screaming. She wasn't screaming and she wasn't jumping up and down and she didn't have her cell phone out to snap pictures of us. She was back to doing her job and I blew out a deep breath.

Normal fans did exist after all.

"I'm gonna help her," I whispered, looking back to Bella once I saw the girl drop about fifteen cases of DVD's back on the floor.

She smiled up at me and nodded, squeezing my hand once more before stepping up on her toes and planting a small kiss against my lips.

"Okay."

I looked around the store, making sure that no one else was in the vicinity – or cared about my presence if they were – before letting go of Bella's hand and slowly walking over to the girl hunched on the floor.

"Need some help?"

Her head shot up, her long brown hair getting caught in her face at the motion and she laughed nervously, dropping another armful of DVD's to the floor as she quickly reached up to push her hair away.

"Uhm, no, I think I can… I mean… you… I… you don't have to."

I smirked down at her before bending down and grabbing a handful of the cases in my arms, standing back up and waiting for her to tell me where they needed to go.

"I didn't mean to, uhm…"

"It's okay," I said quietly, laughing as I watched her quickly grab up the remaining cases and awkwardly stand up again.

"I heard you were around here but I never thought… I mean, I've never seen you here so I…"

She cleared her throat, shaking her head as she walked to the front counter and dropped all of the cases she had onto it. I followed her, doing my best to keep them as stacked as possible before finally giving up and letting them spill from my arms.

"It's okay," I said again, walking back to the box and grabbing that as well. "No harm, no foul."

"Thank," she cleared her throat, taking the box from me only to drop it on the floor behind the counter, "thank you. For… uhm, for helping me pick them up."

"You're welcome, Kristie," I said quietly, noticing her nametag. "Thank _you_ for not screaming."

She laughed nervously and brought her hands up, fidgeting with her fingertips as she cast a sideways glance at me.

"Could I… uhm, I mean, if you don't want to that's okay, but could I get a picture with you?"

I looked over at Bella, who was still picking up DVD cases and reading the backs of them before I looked back to the nervous girl in front of me and nodded.

"Yeah, of course."

A smile brightened her face before her hands came up to flutter around her head.

"I have my camera! I'll be right back!"

I nodded, watching as she ran back towards the door she'd come tripping out of a few minutes before and wondering why in the hell anyone would bring a camera to work.

I shook my head and looked over at Bella, leaning against the counter and smiling. She looked perfectly content, looking at two cases and seeming to compare them very carefully. Her lips were pursed, her eyebrows were furrowed together and her right foot was tapping along to the outdated music playing quietly on the radio.

The door slammed behind the nervous employee named Kristie and Bella looked up at me, an eyebrow raised and that smirk still on her face. I brought my hands up to my face, mimicking a camera and she nodded, pressing her lips together before setting one case back onto the shelf and walking over to me.

"Can't take you anywhere, huh?" she asked, smiling as she leaned against the counter with me.

"Guess not," I smirked. "Find something interesting?"

She grinned and quickly shoved the case behind her before nodding. I raised an eyebrow at her, standing up straight again and moving around her to see what she had.

"No!" she exclaimed, laughing and reaching out to push on my chest. "It's a surprise. And when you're done with all of this," she waved her hand between me and the door before placing it back on my chest, "you need to pick one out, too."

"Why is it a surprise?"

"It just is."

"Nice logic."

"I thought so."

"Is it porn?"

"_What_?"

"Is it?" I asked, smirking. "I'm sure I could think of a few new positions…"

"Shut up!" she laughed, digging her fingernails slightly into my chest. "It's not porn."

We were interrupted when I heard the door slam, indicating that Kristie was back with her camera. Sighing quietly, I reached up and grabbed Bella's wrist, squeezing it gently before turning around to find Kristie standing there, her face bright red with a pink camera clutched in her hands.

"You really don't have to… I mean, it's really not…"

"I'll take it!" Bella declared from behind me, stuffing the movie into her jacket and effectively cutting off any hopes I had of being able to see it as she walked up to Kristie.

"You're… Bella Swan."

Bella nodded, smiling at the poor girl when her mouth dropped open and her eyes flicked in between the two of us, holding out her hand and patiently waiting for the camera.

"So it's true?" Kristie asked in something close to wonder as she slowly handed the camera over to Bella.

I smiled tightly, swallowing the panic in the back of my throat as I made my feet move to stand next to her.

"Very much so," I said quietly, holding out my arm and waiting for Kristie to lean into me like everyone else did.

Once again, I quickly looked around the store to find that two out of the three people that had been in here before had left without making a purchase, leaving one young boy wandering around the video game aisles with iPod headphones stuffed into his ears.

Thank God for small favors.

Bella stepped back from us once Kristie gave her detailed instructions on how to operate the camera and smiled brightly at me.

"Is… is this okay?"

I looked down in surprise to see that Kristie was looking at _Bella_ and asking for _Bella's_ permission. I looked up at Bella and grinned, quickly grabbing Kristie around the shoulders with one arm and hugging her against me tightly.

Kristie shrieked, Bella laughed and I grinned, waiting for everyone to calm down so that the picture could be taken.

Why couldn't all fans be like this one?

"Smile; he won't hurt you, I promise," Bella laughed, raising the camera and holding it out in front of her.

She took the picture and I squeezed Kristie one more time before pulling away and waiting as Bella approached us.

"You make me sick," she stated, pointing at me once she handed the camera back.

"Why's that?"

"You look good in _every damn picture_," she sighed, shaking her head and sticking her hand back in her jacket.

My eyes zeroed in on her hand and I raised an eyebrow. She laughed, pushing against my chest with her other hand before turning to Kristie.

"Thank you," she blurted out quickly, her eyes glued to the screen on the back of the camera. "You have quite possibly made my life."

I laughed and nodded at her.

"You're welcome, Kristie."

She looked up, grinning at me and I saw her beginning to bounce on the balls of her feet.

"I'll… uhm… let you get back to looking. Thanks again!"

She took off, running back through the door and I looked over at Bella, pursing my lips.

"I think it's time to go," I said quietly, having a sneaking suspicion that while she might've been normal, she was probably on the phone with eight hundred of her closest friends right this minute.

And I finally realized why the one fan in the movie store had given me a slight panic attack. Bella was with me and if my suspicions were correct, we'd both be in the middle of a very large group of squealing girls in minutes. I didn't want her to deal with that; not yet, not here.

"Find a movie first!"

"Bella," I groaned, letting her drag me back to the racks of movies.

"Pick one!" she insisted, gently tugging on the arm of my jacket.

I sighed and nodded, reluctantly walking away from her and doing my best to look over the movie titles as quickly as possible. Bella took off toward the door we'd both seen Kristie disappear into and I groaned quietly, shaking my head.

I didn't even want to know what she was doing.

I heard the door slam again a few seconds later and looked up to find Bella giggling with Kristie as they rushed to the front counter.

I raised an eyebrow at them and Bella wiggled her fingers at me as she took the movie case out of her jacket and slapped it on the counter. Kristie had quickly rounded the counter and was picking out the small clear movie case that had the actual DVD into it, ringing it into the computer and still laughing as she handed it to Bella.

I grabbed a random case and quickly walked over to them in just enough time to see Bella slipping that case into her jacket as well and handing Kristie the money to pay for it.

"What'd you do?" I asked, coming up behind her and setting the case for _Click_ on the counter.

"Nothing!" she said brightly, shaking her head and stepping up on her toes to kiss my cheek.

"I don't believe you."

"Doesn't matter."

I rolled my eyes and shook my head, looking at Kristie as she very obviously held in her laughter.

"You're both very amusing," she said quietly, her face reddening as she quickly grabbed _Click_'s case and turned around to retrieve the DVD.

"We are pretty amusing," Bella mused, looking up at me and grinning.

"I'm not agreeing to that until you tell me what's going on."

"You'll find out soon enough," she sang, tilting her head from side to side as she watched Kristie locate the DVD and walk back to us.

Smirking, I wrapped an arm around her waist and dug into my back pocket to get my wallet with the other.

Kristie rung us out, going slower than I thought possible and I started to get nervous when I could see more cars start to fill up the parking lot from the plate glass window behind the counter.

"Have a nice day," she finally smiled, handing the movie over to me once I'd given her the money. "And thank you so much, Edward. I really appreciate it."

"No problem," I smiled, tightening my arm around Bella's waist before pulling her along with me as I damn near ran out of the store.

"You really need to relax," Bella laughed, reaching around and patting the hand I had on her hip.

I pushed through the door and cringed as I saw teenage girls just getting out of their cars – all of them holding cameras.

"Fuck… Bella, I'm sorry," I mumbled, keeping my head down as I pulled her towards the truck.

"Would you do me a favor?" she asked, stopping completely and pulling me to a halt.

I looked at her, my eyes wide as I tried pulling her with me again. She moved about an inch before planting her feet firmly on the ground and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Will it get you to move?" I asked, looking around the parking lot when I saw flashes from cameras starting to go off.

They were a relatively safe distance away from us and probably couldn't really hear a word that we were saying, but it didn't matter. They were still _there_, watching us with their cameras up to their eyes.

I was thankful that they hadn't approached us yet, but knew that it probably wouldn't take much longer. I just wanted her to _move_ so that we could go home and hibernate for the rest of the week.

She didn't deserve this. She wasn't meant for this.

"Yes."

"Then I'll do anything right now, Bella, but please… I don't want you in the middle of this."

"You asked me if I was ready for all of this and I said _yes_. I don't like it, no, but that's the price I have to pay for being with you. Stop trying to protect me from something that's going to happen no matter where we go."

"Bella, I just want your life to continue being as normal as possible."

She blinked at me and shook her head, rolling her eyes.

"The minute I said yes to you, my life was no longer normal. And I don't care. I'm with you, I'm in love with you and I don't care if I never know what normal feels like ever again. I'm _happy_, Edward, and if people want to follow me around and ask me stupid questions about my life, then so be it."

I just stared at her, slowly shaking my head before I dropped the movie case to the ground, stepped in front of her and grabbed her face in my hands.

"You really are perfect, aren't you?" I whispered before placing my lips on hers.

"No," she whispered back, stepping down from me and smiling, "I just love you."

I laughed and briefly closed my eyes, kissing her forehead before stepping back from her and bending down to get the movie case. Standing up straight, I reached for her hand and linked our fingers, looking over to smile at the group of five girls crowded around a white Chevy Lumina.

They all began manically waving and I squeezed Bella's hand tightly, quickly walking over to the truck and opening her door as I waved back. I watched her pull the movie out of her jacket, placing it on the seat and before I could get a good glimpse at the disc inside, she was sitting on it.

"You're gonna get it for this, you know," I stated, pointing at her as she got situated in the driver's seat.

She grinned at me, reaching over her shoulder to pull the seatbelt across her lap.

"Bring it, boy."

"Oh, I will," I promised, slamming her door shut and quickly jogging around the front of the truck.

The group of girls was still standing there and all of them looked highly disappointed that I was leaving. Taking a deep breath, I shook my head, waved at them one more time and then quickly climbed into the passenger side of the truck.

"Next time, we'll bring the hat," Bella stated easily as she started the truck and shifted it into gear.

"That's a good idea," I grumbled, slumping down into the seat and securing the seatbelt across my waist.

Fuck knows why I didn't bring it to begin with.

We arrived back to the house a few minutes later and Bella pulled into her driveway before I slid out of the cab and waited for her at the back of the truck.

"Gonna tell me what movie you got?" I asked, grabbing her hand in mine as we walked across the road.

"Nope, but we are watching it first."

"Should I be scared?"

"Maybe," she hummed out, letting go of my hand to sprint up the porch steps and wait impatiently at the front door.

I laughed and made it up to her, unlocking the door and letting her walk in ahead of me. I watched as she shed her coat, pulling the movie back out and turning the DVD player on.

"Get comfy!" she demanded, pointing to the couch before huddling close to the television and quickly taking the disc out of the case to plop it into the extended tray.

I laughed at her, shaking my head, dropping my coat and the movie case into the rocking chair and kicking my shoes off before making my way over to the couch. I lay down on it, groaning happily and closing my eyes.

"Have you seen this movie before?" I finally asked, slowly opening my eyes.

"Yep, and it's one of my favorites," she stated brightly, grabbing the remote from the top of the DVD player and flipping on the television.

"But you won't tell me what it is."

"You'll find out soon enough."

She bounced over to me and I turned on my side, making room for her as she lay down in front of me. I wrapped an arm around her waist and briefly buried my nose in the back of her neck before shifting slightly and resting my head on the pillow so that I could see.

She skipped ahead through the previews and the minute the opening credits started rolling, I tensed.

I knew those credits. And that was my _name_ flashing in front of us.

"You… did… _not_."

"Shh!" she insisted, reaching around and hitting my hip. "This is the best part."

"Bella," I growled, tightening my arm around her waist and pulling her against me.

"Shh!"

"I'm going to…" And then I – in all my full-frontal naked and less defined glory – flashed on the screen, running after the fully dressed supposed love of my life as she left me. Bella started laughing hysterically, snorting and gently slapping at the arm I had around her waist. "Kill you," I squeaked, burying my nose into the back of her neck and digging my fingertips into her ribs.

I had just signed on with Jeannie when I was offered the role in this movie. I'd moved out to Los Angeles a few months prior, was living in a shithole apartment that had a futon and nothing more and was one more movie audition away to calling it quits and heading back to Forks.

When I'd been told that I'd gotten this part, I'd been naive enough to do absolutely anything the director wanted me to.

That included running naked through the set, screaming at the top of my lungs and crying my eyes out after a girl that wasn't featured at all in the rest of the movie.

Jeannie hadn't known me well enough to advise me not to even think twice about it and to this day, at least one reporter always had to bring it up during an interview.

"No!" she screamed, kicking her legs out as I trapped her against me and tickled her mercilessly.

"This isn't fair!"

"But it's so funny," she gasped out, clawing at my hand as she threw her head back against my shoulder and laughed loudly.

"That's _funny_? I'm _naked_, Bella!"

"I know!" she squeaked, screaming as I shoved my hand up her shirt and grabbed her side.

"Something about me being naked is funny to you?"

"You're… running…" she gasped, still wiggling against me and clawing at my hand. "Edward, stop!"

"Is that what you really think of me naked?"

"No!"

"Then why are you still laughing?"

"Because you're… pathetic and… Edward, stop it!"

"Oh, I'm pathetic now?"

I dug my fingertips back into her ribs and she jerked back against me, her feet lightly kicking against my shins.

"In the movie! Edward, I can't breathe!"

I let my hand rest on her stomach, keeping her pressed tight against me as she caught her breath. I tucked my chin into the crook of her shoulder and looked down my nose at her.

"How old were you?" she managed, pointing to the screen.

"Nineteen."

"You're…" She swallowed and then turned on her back, looking up at me. Her chest was still heaving and her eyes were still laughing at me. "You're much better now."

"So I was bad then?"

"No," she breathed, shaking her head and reaching up to frame my face with her hands, "but you're mine now. And that makes you better."

I sighed heavily and dropped my forehead gently onto hers. It was really hard to be even slightly annoyed at her when she said things like that.

"You're really good at worming your way out of things, aren't you?"

"It's true!" she insisted, laughing and wrapping one of her legs around mine. "I love both versions of you."

"So you're laughing at that version why?"

"Out of love," she grinned up at me, running her hands down my throat and resting on my chest.

"Mhmm," I mumbled, rolling my eyes and smirking at her. "And this is one of your favorite movies?"

She nodded enthusiastically, running her hands over my chest as she bit her bottom lip.

"I loved your naked ass even then."

I rolled my eyes and sighed again.

"You're not really mad at me, are you?" she asked quietly, her eyes widening innocently.

"No," I laughed, pressing my lips against hers. "I can't be mad at someone that loved my naked ass even then."

She threw her head back into the pillow and laughed, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling herself back up to press her face into my chest.

I laughed, shaking my head and wrapping my arms around her waist to hold her to me, burying my nose into her hair and breathing in deeply.

She found great pleasure in finding ways to knock my ego down at least six pegs every time she possibly could but I'd never change that for the world. She loved me despite my flaws and all the embarrassing things that I'd done during my career – and she knew about all the dumbass things I'd done when I was younger, thanks to Alice – and I could never ask for anything more than that.


	26. No Spell

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**So I'm slightly buzzed at the moment – friends' birthdays will do that to you – and can't really think of anything to say except for…**

**I love you guys. You're amazing and better than peach sangria and strawberry shortcake and cigarettes.**

**Have another song for this chapter, as well! No Spell by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.  
**

**Longer note at the end. In the mean time, enjoy!**

~*~

***Bella***

My eyes popped open and I looked up at the ceiling, my stomach already rolling as I slowly moved my head to look over at the empty space where Edward should've been next to me.

It was Sunday and he was leaving tomorrow morning at ten fifteen.

We'd spent the entire rest of the week in the house, only leaving to return the movies and get something to eat when neither of us really wanted to cook.

It had been one of the best weeks of my life. I spent all of my time with him, being part of a normal couple that did normal things without leaving our little bubble of solitude.

He'd read over the script Jeannie had sent him, shaking his head disgustingly when he came to a particularly gross scene and had decided that there was absolutely no way he would act in it.

He'd grudgingly given me Jessica's ticket for the premiere, biting his bottom lip as he handed it over.

I told him that he was spending too much time with me; he agreed and we ended up on the floor of the kitchen after an entirely useless tickle fight, completely oblivious to what we'd been arguing about the minute our lips met.

We had christened ninety-nine percent of the downstairs of his house. I wouldn't let him near the table, though. After my dream, I never wanted to even _imagine_ us on the kitchen table ever again.

We'd shoveled out the Volvo and had done all of our laundry yesterday, neither of us really thinking about what any of that meant for the time being.

Angela had personally delivered all of the pictures to us on Friday morning, informing me that I owed her one hell of a drink when we went out next week. Rosalie had been hounding her about information ever since last Friday night, threatening to show up on his doorstep soon and Angela had had to show her the pictures just to prove that Edward was _behaving_. Even then, it had taken her quite a bit of time to convince Rosalie that just showing up when she'd promised to leave us alone would be a very bad idea.

I looked away from the ceiling, biting my bottom lip as my eyes drifted to the framed twenty-four by thirty-six canvas print directly across from the bed. Angela had convinced us to strip off our shirts at some point and this particular photo involved me lying on the floor with Edward on top of me, our lips barely touching and our chests pressed tightly together.

There was another one – this one rolled up and placed in a tube – leaning against the wardrobe doors so that he wouldn't forget it tomorrow morning.

We hadn't spoken about his leaving. Not for lack of trying on his part, though. He'd wanted to – he brought it up at every damn opportunity, actually – and I kept avoiding it as much as possible.

I knew that we had to talk about it. I knew that we had to get everything out in the open so that we didn't end up hurting each other when we were apart.

But talking about it made it too real. And I wasn't ready for him to leave yet; I wasn't ready to go back to my empty house and long for the warmth of the home across the street.

I wasn't ready to lose him to real life just yet.

Swallowing hard, I slowly pushed myself up and rested back against the headboard, reaching up and rubbing my hands over my face.

I heard his footsteps on the stairs and dropped my hands into my lap, looking over at the doorway and waiting for him to appear. He did a few seconds later, two mugs of what I assumed was coffee gripped in his hands and what appeared to be a manila envelope held tightly against his chest with his forearm.

"Good; you're up," he smiled, walking over to me and handing me a mug.

He leaned over, gently pressing a kiss against my temple.

"Sleep well?"

I smiled and nodded, wrapping my hands around the mug and watching as he rounded the end of the bed. He set his mug on the end table next to him, set the envelope in the center of the bed and sat down next to me.

"We need to talk, Bella," he said softly, placing a hand on my knee and looking over at me. "There isn't a _later_ anymore."

I nodded again, slowly lifting the mug to my lips and staring down at his hand.

"I know," I said quietly.

He raised his hand to place it on the back of my neck, gently rubbing it as he leaned into me and kissed my temple again.

"I love you," he whispered, briefly resting his forehead against the side of my head.

I reached over and placed my hand on his leg, turning once he backed away and smiling shakily at him.

"I love you too."

He moved his hand from the back of my neck, reaching around to brush his knuckles over my cheek before grabbing the envelope.

"Jeannie may be a pain in the ass sometimes, but she knows me," he started, handing it to me.

I raised an eyebrow at him and set the mug down on the end table beside me before taking it from him and flipping it open. He placed his hand back on my knee, rubbing soothing circles on it as I pulled out a packet of paper and a recent _Us Weekly_ magazine.

I glanced at the cover and twisted my lips to the side, seeing another version of our night out splashed on the front cover.

"Look at that in a minute," he said quietly, reaching over and taking the magazine from me.

"What does that even have to do with anything?"

"Don't worry about that right now." He flipped it upside down on the bed in front of us, nodding to the papers I still held in my hands. "Look at those."

Sighing and shaking my head, I finally looked at the papers to see that they were photocopied pages from someone's planner.

_Edward; Vacation_ was written in the box for December seventh with a line drawn straight through most of the month. _Edward in Forks_ was written on December twenty-second and I swallowed hard, sucking in a deep breath. I followed the line that stemmed from that box, straight to the first of the year. _Edward; Premiere for __**Genius**__; 5PM_ was written in the box for January second.

I kept reading, frantically flipping pages and shaking my head at all of the things he had to do once he was back in California. He had something to do for every single day, right up until the middle of March when I saw that Jeannie had already written in _Edward; New York _with a line straight through three days.

"She… she already wrote that in there."

I looked up at him to see him nodding slowly at me.

"She's already got the plane tickets waiting for me at her office."

"March?" I whispered. "That's so…" I looked back down at the papers in my hands and bit my bottom lip. "That's so far away."

"I have a weekend," he said quietly, flipping back a few pages and pointing at a weekend in February that I seemed to have missed through the haze my brain had become somewhere around the middle of January. "You could… would you come to…? I mean…"

I looked up at him when he huffed and watched as he ran a hand through his hair and stared down at the comforter, his jaw tensed and the muscles working quickly.

"Yes," I said softly.

He looked over at me, his eyes locking onto mine as he seemed to chew the inside of his cheek.

"It won't be too much of a problem? With the store and all?"

My heart twisted painfully in my chest as I threw the pages to the bed before I crawled over to him and straddled his lap. His arms immediately wound around my waist and I buried my hands in his hair.

I loved the store; yes. It kept me fed, clothed and it kept a roof over my head – when I was over there, anyway – and it had been in my family for longer than I could remember.

Did it mean that I loved that place more than I loved Edward?

Fuck no.

And if I had someone that I could trust, someone that was willing to take over the entire thing and I thought that I could live without my friends and Charlie for extended amounts of time, I'd be packing everything I owned and getting onto that plane with him tomorrow morning without a second thought.

But my life was _here_. It was here, in this cabin that he should always be in with my bookstore right down the road and everything we could possibly ever need _right here_.

"Just because I can't go with you on a more permanent basis," I said softly, taking a deep breath and meeting his eyes, "doesn't mean that I wouldn't close the store every single fucking weekend if it meant that I could see you. Don't _ever_ ask me if it's a problem."

"I don't want you…"

"Do I ever do anything I don't want to do?" I interrupted him, gently rubbing my thumbs over his temples.

I watched the corners of his mouth lift up into a slow smile before he leaned forward and placed his lips on mine.

"I'll buy your ticket."

"I'll buy my own damn ticket, thank you," I quipped, running my hands through his hair and resting them on his shoulders. "I'm more than capable of that."

He sighed heavily, leaning his forehead against mine and closing his eyes. I wrapped my hands around his neck, running my thumbs up and down the column of his throat as I stared at his eyelids.

"Three months is a really long time," he said softly, shaking his head slightly. "But it'll be here before we know it, you know? We won't even realize that it's been that long until I'm standing on your front porch."

"I'll make you dinner," I laughed softly, swallowing hard to cover up the tears that wanted to make their way up my throat. "And we won't leave the house."

He smirked and shook his head again, breathing out a laugh before sighing and pressing his lips into a tight line.

"I know you know this already, Bella, but it's going to be _really_ hard," he whispered again. "People are going to make up so much shit about me being with someone else the minute I'm back in California and I need you to understand that none of it will be true."

His eyes finally opened again and he licked his lips, his arms tightening around me.

"_You_ have my heart," he whispered, laughing once half-heartedly.

"I'll keep it safe," I whispered back, smiling softly and leaning in to kiss him again.

"Those days in March," he started, clearing his throat, "can you take them off?"

I nodded, biting my bottom lip again and watching my thumbs as they continued their trails up and down his throat.

Like I was actually going to spend the entire time working when I knew that he was back home. Seriously, what the hell was he thinking?

"Whenever you're here, I'm here. I'm not wasting any of my time with you."

And then he was crushing me against his chest, his face buried in my shoulder as his hands ran up and down my back. I moved my hands from his neck to wrap my arms around his shoulders, leaning my cheek on the back of his head.

We stayed that way for a few minutes, wrapped around each other and hanging on as if our lives depended on it.

Hell, at this point they might've.

"Okay," he finally breathed, backing away from me slightly. "There are still quite a few things that we need to go over."

I reached up and ran my hands through his hair again, smirking at him.

"You sound like a teacher."

He smiled and shrugged easily.

"I'm up for that."

I laughed and slapped gently at his bare chest, rolling my eyes as he merely smirked and squeezed me once. He grabbed my waist, easily lifting me from his lap and setting me next to him on the bed again. I curled my legs underneath me, leaning my head on his shoulder and getting as close to his side as possible when he slung an arm around my shoulders.

He reached over, grabbed the magazine and placed it face up in front of us, sighing heavily and shaking his head.

"This is your life now, Bella," he said quietly, his hand rubbing up and down my upper arm. "You'll be tabloid fodder, your name will be dragged through the mud no matter what Jeannie has told them and you'll _never_ be the good guy in any outcome."

I swallowed hard, nodding and looking down at the cover of the magazine. My back was pressed against his chest, my head was thrown back on his shoulder and one of his arms was around my waist as we danced. It was grainy, but very easy to make out and extremely easy to tell that it was Edward behind me.

His hair, if nothing else, gave it all away.

"If Kristie's friends haven't said anything about seeing us, then it'll buy you a little time before the reporters start calling and the paparazzi start showing up wherever you are." He sucked in a deep breath and once again, I was crushed – this time very awkwardly – against his chest as he pulled me to him. "I don't want this for you, Bella."

"What did I tell you?" I backed away from him and framed his face in my hands. "I'm _with you_ through all of it. I love you, Edward, and this is what I have to learn to live with. I'm _with you_."

"Do you realize that nothing you do will ever be private again?" he asked, his voice rushed and low. "They'll have pictures of you out shopping, hanging out with Rosalie and Angela – they won't be able to escape this either; not now. Your father might be able to get away from it because he's a cop, but Rose and Angela won't. Nothing is just yours anymore."

"You are," I said softly, gently shaking his head. "You're mine."

"They'll speculate about you. They'll see you with another guy – maybe someone you just happened to turn around and smile at – and you'll immediately be cheating on me. And they'll be so harsh on you; especially because I'm not around to refute it."

"But you'll know the truth. I'll know the truth. And it's not like we're never going to talk, right?" I asked, my voice spiking as I laughed nervously. "We're going to talk all the time, right?"

He'd never said anything about how we were going to keep in touch once he left. Yeah, okay, we'd just made plans to see each other twice during the next few months, but he hadn't said anything about talking to each other in between that time.

I shook my head a little, clamping my teeth down together and forcing the thoughts out.

_No_.

"Every damn day," he whispered, reaching up to grab my wrists in his hands and leaning forward to kiss me again. "I'm not going a day without hearing your voice."

I sat up a little straighter, feeling better when he spoke my thoughts out loud and threw my legs over his lap.

"Then stop trying to talk me out of being with you," I said softly, shaking my head. "I know all of what you're saying."

"You don't know the extent of it, Bella. You don't know how far they can actually take it. They'll be prying into your life as soon as I step off that plane without you and questions will be thrown around the news, in the tabloids… everywhere."

"Do you _want_ to break it off with me?"

"What? No!"

"Then stop this." I gently shook his head again. "You want me in your life, don't you?"

"Of course I do! Bella, that isn't at all where I was going with all of this."

"Then you need to trust me when I say that _I know_, Edward. This is going to be hard enough without thinking in the back of my head that maybe you don't really want this."

"Bella…"

"I told you that I'd wait for you. You have to wait for me, too." I leaned forward and rested my forehead against his. "You have to trust me."

"I do," he whispered, moving his hands from my wrists to place them on my waist and lift me into his lap again.

"Then don't doubt me anymore, okay?"

He nodded, kissing me again and tightening his arms around my waist.

"I'm sorry. I just… if I could keep you from all of this then you know that I would."

"If that meant keeping me from you then I wouldn't want it anyway."

"Maybe it'd be better that way," he whispered sadly.

Anger and pain laced through me and before I was able to comprehend what I was doing, I'd leaped out of his lap and was pacing around the bedroom, my arms crossed over my chest as I stared at the floor.

"Bella…"

"If you don't want this; if you don't want _me_," I said, stopping and digging a fingertip painfully into my chest, "then tell me right fucking now. Don't put me through this pep talk bullshit if you don't have any intentions of sticking around after you leave tomorrow, all right?"

He was already shaking his head before I'd even finished, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open in something that I figured must be disbelief.

I'd never talked to him this way before. Hell, I'd never had to. He'd never been so completely ridiculous and stupid and plain… _hurtful_ before. Not with me; he wasn't like this with me.

"What are you…? Bella, no, that's not…"

"Then don't you _dare_ tell me that maybe it'd be better if I'd kept away from you." I pointed at him then, clamping my hand into a fist when I realized that it was shaking. "That's not fair to me and that's not fair to what we have, Edward. But if you really meant that, then maybe I should leave now."

"No!" he roared, shooting up from the bed and taking one huge step over to me, wrapping me tightly in his arms. "No!"

I kept my arms to myself, standing rigidly against him and clenching my jaw together tightly.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, his voice cracking as he kept his arms tight around me. "Bella, I'm so sorry."

I stayed quiet, swallowing hard and staring at his chest as his hands kept moving around my back, stroking my spine and tangling in the ends of my hair.

"Say something," he finally pleaded, one of his hands cupping the back of my head. "I'm sorry, Bella. Please say something."

"Do you have any faith in us?" I asked softly, the anger almost completely gone as the pain easily replaced it. "Do you believe in us at all?"

"Of course I do!"

I snorted and walked out of his arms, shaking my head as I started to pace again. I ran a hand through my hair, keeping it on the back of my head as I placed my other one on my hip and sucked my bottom lip into my mouth.

"That's why you wished you'd never started dating me, right?"

I stopped and looked up at him, my eyes already wet as I dropped my arms to my sides.

"That's not what I said! Bella, you're twisting things around on me!"

"It's the same damn thing, Edward!" I exclaimed, throwing my hands out at my sides. I crossed them over my chest and looked away from him, sniffling. "And it hurts no matter how you word it."

I turned on my heel, walking out of the bedroom and across the hall to the bathroom. I closed the door behind me and stood in the middle of the room, blinking rapidly at the bathtub.

This wasn't how I wanted to spend our last day together. I'd known that it wasn't going to be easy and that we were going to have to talk about everything, but I'd never expected it to end up this way.

I sighed out a shuddering breath and sank down onto the bath mat, pulling my knees up to my chest to rest my chin on them.

I needed to be rational. I needed to clear my head and really _think_ about what in the hell had just happened between us. Now was _not_ the time to fuck it all up.

Running away from him wasn't proving anything. The only thing I was doing was making this whole damn thing ten times worse than it really needed to be.

He loves me. And he's just as worried about his leaving as I am.

I closed my eyes tightly, wrapping my arms around my legs and taking deep, even breaths.

_He loves me_. He wants to protect me from everything that he's been forced to deal with on a regular basis.

I pressed my lips together and continued to breathe in through my nose.

He wants me to be safe. He doesn't want my life turned upside down just because of what he does for a living.

As if it wasn't turned upside down when I first kissed him anyway.

And God, how I loved him. My life had changed because of him, yes, but it was in such a way that I'd never been happier about it.

The hell with the rest of the world; Isabella Swan was finally learning what it felt like to really be _in love_ with someone.

After so long of just existing with someone else, it was more than I could ever have possibly imagined to finally feel this way.

He had doubts and things that he needed to work out, too. I wasn't the only one that would be suffering when he left tomorrow and the minute he voiced how he felt, I overreacted and walked out on him.

Some girlfriend I was.

I unfolded myself from the floor, standing up and swallowing hard as I slowly walked to the door and pulled it open. My heart ached when I saw Edward sitting on the floor next to the bedroom door, his hands tangled in his hair and his knees pulled up with his elbows rested on them.

His head snapped up when he heard the door open and I swallowed hard at the regret lining his eyes.

He dropped his legs to the floor, his arms falling limply into his lap as he looked up at me.

"I understand if you want to leave," he said softly, his voice cracking again. "I just… let me see you tomorrow before I go, Bella. I can't…" He swallowed hard and reached up to run his hands through his hair again. "I can't go without seeing you."

I shook my head and walked over to him, plopping into his lap and quickly wrapping my arms tightly around his neck, burying my face into his chest as his arms immediately wrapped around my waist.

"It's my turn to be really, really sorry," I whispered, closing my eyes.

"I shouldn't have said it that way…"

"But I shouldn't have reacted like that."

"You had every right…"

"I had no right to say those things to you."

"That wasn't what I meant."

"I know," I said softly, breathing in deeply.

"I never want to hurt you."

"I know."

We stayed that way for a few more minutes, our grips never letting up on each other and neither of us moving very far.

"I believe in us, I believe in you. I love you so fucking much, Bella," he finally whispered, pulling me tighter against him and shaking his head. "I'm just… I want you to be okay when I'm not here. I want you to still be living a normal life and doing the things you always do. I'm so… I'm scared that you'll just get so tired of it and decide that it's not worth it. Decide that _I'm_ not worth it anymore."

"That'll never happen." I shook my head and reached up to tangle my hands in his hair. "You're more than worth it, Edward."

"Will you still think that way when there's a camera in your face and people following you everywhere all the damn time?"

"Yes," I whispered, moving one hand from his hair to cup his cheek in my hand and rub my thumb across it. "Because I love you and if they can find something that interesting about me, then they're either really good at their jobs or really bored."

He let out a choked laugh, burying his nose into my hair and I felt my t-shirt pull up at the bottom as he fisted his hands into it.

"I'm scared too, you know," I whispered, taking a deep breath as I felt him stiffen underneath me. "There are so many beautiful girls out in California and you could want to be with one of them more than you want to be with me."

"That'll _never_ happen."

"Someone could," I laughed half-heartedly and kept my hand on his cheek, "sweep you off of your feet and that'll just be it for you."

"_You're_ it for me, Bella. Please don't doubt that," he whispered into my neck, shaking his head and pressing his lips against my shoulder. "Please."

I nodded, pressing my lips together and moving my other hand from his hair to rub it over his shoulder blades.

"I love you," I whispered into his ear. "More than I ever thought possible."

He moved his head from my neck and my hand dropped in between us as he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine. I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck, pressing my chest against his and opening my mouth to trace his bottom lip with my tongue. His lips parted, his tongue snaking out and into my mouth.

"I don't wish that we'd never started dating," he said quickly, pulling back from me as if I'd bitten him. "I'd never wish that, Bella, you have to understand that."

"I know," I whispered, nodding. "I twisted things, you said so yourself."

"And I don't want you thinking that I don't want you. I want you, always, and you can't doubt that, okay? You _can't_."

I swallowed hard and shook my head, reaching up with shaking hands to frame his face.

"Calm down," I whispered, sliding my hands into his hair.

"I don't want to lose you."

"You won't."

"I _can't_ lose you."

"You _won't_," I whispered, slowly dragging my fingernails over the back of his head.

"It's never been like this for me before, Bella. I've never had to worry about leaving someone behind because it never mattered this much before. I don't know… I don't know what to do," he choked out a half-hearted laugh before he shook his head and closed his eyes.

"We'll muddle through this together because I don't know either. But we're not giving up," he shook his head quickly in agreement, his eyes still closed, "and we'll get through it."

"After those three days in March," he started, licking his lips, "I have to go to Canada to shoot a movie for a few months. It's gonna be long days and…"

"You will call me," I interrupted, "no matter what time of day it is."

He nodded, slowly opening his eyes to look into mine.

"I just know how you hate the phone."

I blinked at him before laughter escaped my lips and I shook my head. He smirked at me, leaning forward and kissing me softly. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he backed away again.

"There was a reason for that magazine," he said, twisting his lips to the side.

I took a deep breath and nodded, kissing him again before standing up and waiting for him to do the same. He grabbed my hand when he was back on his feet, leading me back into the bedroom and over to my side of the bed. He sat down first, his hand still tangled with mine as he pulled me in between his legs. I grabbed the magazine before I settled back against his chest and placed it in my lap. He rested his chin on my shoulder, his other arm wrapping tightly around my waist.

"Page twenty-one," he said quietly.

I flipped to the page he wanted, cringing slightly at all the pictures I hadn't realized that had been taken while we were out.

There were twenty times more than Jessica had shown me last week littered around the two page spread, lining the border with little blurbs underneath them.

"This is Jeannie's statement about you," he said, shaking his hand from mine and pointing to a paragraph near the beginning of the article. "You're a very big part of this now, Bella."

I skimmed over the article, swallowing the small bit of panic that flowed through me as I read over a brief summary of my life printed in a national magazine that tens of thousands of people were reading. Almost all of the answers to her questions – excluding the last one she'd asked – were there in some form or another and I bit my bottom lip.

"'_Is she just some passing fling? No. We have confirmation that this girl is here to stay_'," he quoted softly into my ear. "I hope she is."

"I'm not going anywhere." I snapped the magazine shut and shifted to the side so that I could see him. "Please believe _that_, Edward."

He studied me, his eyes searching my face before he nodded and leaned in to kiss me again.

"I'm just…"

"I know you are. But here's the thing," I started, turning in his arms and throwing my legs over one of his, "I'm pretty much made for you. And as far as I can see, you're pretty much made for me. So there's something that we need to do right now."

"What's that?" he asked, a small smile flitting across his face as he clasped both of his hands around my waist.

"We need to remember that we're still going to be that way no matter how far apart we are. We need to realize that what we have isn't something that comes around all the time. We need to listen to each other and give in completely to what we make each other feel because if we don't, we're ruining the best thing either of us has had in a really long time." I sat up, crashing my lips to his quickly before backing away slightly. "And I don't want to take any chances like that. Not with you."

His small smile turned into a grin as he leaned forward and gently kissed both of my cheeks.

"How'd I end up with someone like you?"

"I got buzzed and kissed you?"

He laughed and nodded, leaning forward and resting his forehead against mine.

"Best damn thing you could've ever done, Bella."

"And don't you dare forget that, all right?" I asked sternly, pursing my lips at him.

"I won't."

"And stop thinking it."

He smirked and nodded, sucking in a deep breath and pulling me against his chest. I rested against him, reaching up to place my palm over his heart as I tucked my head underneath his chin.

"Are you hungry?" he whispered, one of his hands rounding my back and playing with the ends of my hair.

I shook my head, looking up and kissing the bottom of his chin.

"Just stay here with me for a little while longer, okay?"

His arms tightened around me as he nodded, moving his head down to press his lips to mine.

"As long as you want."

I smiled sadly and tucked my head back underneath his chin, curling up against him and closing my eyes.

What I wouldn't give for someone I trusted to be around right this fucking second. No part of me wanted him to leave tomorrow morning without me by his side. I didn't want to go back to the empty house across the street, I didn't want to go back to work on Tuesday to deal with Jessica's questions and snotty comments when I knew that he wouldn't be there to deflect all of it when I got home.

I wanted to stay right here with him for the rest of my life. I didn't want to move from his arms, I didn't want to stop feeling like I finally had something solid and stable to lean on and I definitely didn't want to remember what it was like to sleep on an air mattress.

I sighed, turned my face to his chest and pressed my lips right above my fingertips.

"I want forever," I whispered.

"It's yours," he whispered back and I felt his lips pressing against the top of my head.

~*~

We finally made our way downstairs a few hours later when my stomach loudly insisted that it needed to be filled. He'd laughed and plucked me up from his lap, ignoring my screeching when he kept me cradled in his arms and walked downstairs with me and into the kitchen.

And then he'd made me promise that I wouldn't move from the kitchen until he said so, which naturally had me itching to follow him as he darted back up the stairs.

So I put my anxious energy to work and began making French toast, casting glances out of the corner of my eye when he came back downstairs with a few thousand bags in his hands and disappeared into the living room, threatening me with bodily harm if I came out before he said I could.

I huffed and seriously contemplated burning his portion of brunch before I realized that he'd probably just end up stealing mine.

I grumbled and slammed bowls and pans around, scowling a little more as I heard him laughing out in the living room as he did whatever it was that he was doing.

And _of course_ he wasn't making any damn noise aside from the soft rustling of the plastic bags, so I couldn't even determine what he might've had up his sleeve.

I didn't care if curiosity killed the cat; I was going to explode if I didn't figure out what the hell he was up to.

Sighing, I flipped the last piece of bread out of the pan and onto the stack on the plate next to me, flipping off the burner and walking to the doorway of the kitchen.

I stuck my head out, doing my best to peer around the corner in an attempt to see what he was doing.

Everything appeared normal; all I saw was the side of the television and the front door. Both were perfectly normal and I huffed again, crossing my arms over my chest and pouting.

This was getting me nowhere.

"Food's done!" I exclaimed sourly, listening to his hasty footsteps as he rushed into the dining room.

"Smell's delicious," he stated brightly, kissing my cheek before he sailed into the kitchen and over to the refrigerator.

I turned and watched as he grabbed a bottle of maple syrup, walking to the counter and grabbing two plates from the cabinet as well as the plate of French toast.

"We're gonna eat in the living room," he stated, balancing the plate in the palm of his hand.

"Why?" I asked slowly.

He just grinned at me.

"Stay here," he instructed, kissing my cheek again as he sailed by me and back into the living room.

I growled after him, narrowing my eyes at his retreating back until he completely disappeared. Twisting my lips to the side, I stomped over to the counter and yanked open the drawer that housed the silverware. I grabbed a few forks and knives, holding them tightly in my hand before standing back in the doorway of the kitchen and tapping my foot impatiently.

He reappeared a few minutes later, a grin on his face as he walked over to me and stood in front of me.

"Let me take those," he laughed a little nervously before taking the silverware from me and grabbing one of my hands in his free one. "Will you close your eyes?"

I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Please?" he laughed, gently tugging on my hand and sounding a bit like an impatient five year old.

"Is anything going to jump out at me?"

"No."

Sighing heavily, I stood up straight, squeezed his hand and closed my eyes. I jumped when I felt his lips on mine and resisted the urge to kick him when he laughed at me.

"You'll enjoy this, Bella, I promise."

"Mhmm," I drawled, rolling my eyes and shuffling my feet as he started to pull me.

"You enjoyed the last surprise, didn't you?" he mocked.

"Yeah, well…"

"That's what I thought."

I stumbled a little when my feet met the carpet of the living room, having to actually pick up my feet as opposed to shuffling them against the hardwood floor of the dining room.

"Keep them closed!" he exclaimed before he let go of my hand.

I heard the silverware scraping against what I assumed were the plates and unconsciously began to tap my toes again as I waited for him.

"Calm down, Bella," he laughed. "Nothing's going to jump out at you and nothing's going to hurt you. I'd never let anything happen to you."

"I _know_," I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest and doing my best to relax.

It was then that I noticed the slight temperature change in the room. While the house was warm, this room seemed to be even warmer than usual. And it smelled different, too…

I stuck my nose in the air, inhaling deeply and ignoring the snort coming from Edward's general direction.

Vanilla; that was definitely vanilla that I smelled.

What in the _hell_ could he possibly be doing and why in the _fuck_ did the living room suddenly smell like someone had dumped an entire bottle of vanilla extract into the carpet?

Maybe I should've looked a little more closely at the things in his cabinets…

"Edward," I whined, abandoning even the pretense of trying to relax.

"I'm almost done!" he laughed. "You're impatient, you know?"

"I hate surprises. We've been over this."

"Well, I happen to love surprising you whether you like it or not. Something that you'll just have to get used to," he sang.

I grumbled and pressed my lips tightly together, curling my hands into fists at my sides and doing my best to resist the urge to just open my damn eyes.

It was like the blindfold thing all over again.

I couldn't stop the smug smirk that my lips lifted in to, imagining the way _he_ had looked with the blindfold over his eyes, his arms spread out at his sides as I kissed down his chest.

Needless to say, he'd enjoyed it quite a bit more than I had.

"Okay."

I jumped from my very vivid memories when I heard his voice right in front of me and growled when he laughed at me again.

I didn't like this game. I didn't like that he had the unnatural ability to be as quiet as a fucking mouse, either.

It was unnerving and completely unfair.

"You can open your eyes now."

My eyes popped open and I was met with his chest as he pulled me into his arms and held me tightly against him.

I still couldn't see a damn thing and he was making sure of that.

"I've been planning this for a while," he said softly, all traces of laughter and joking gone from his voice. "So if you really hate it, tell me and we'll never speak of it again."

"Edward…"

"This is our last full day together, Bella," he whispered, backing away from me slightly and meeting my gaze. "And while it got off to a bit of a rough start, I want it to end on a much better note. So if you don't like it or this is too much, tell me, all right?"

I could only nod, his eyes so intent and focused on mine that I couldn't do anything else. He leaned down, his lips soft against mine before he pulled away and stepped to the side.

My breath _whooshed_ out of my lungs and I swallowed hard, tears immediately stinging my eyes.

The coffee table was pushed right up against the couch and a blue, fleece blanket was spread over the floor. Pillows were scattered around the edges and the French toast I'd made was sitting in the middle of it. The vanilla smell and temperature difference came from what seemed like a million candles scattered all around, lighting up the room. He'd closed the shades, keeping the dismal amount of sunlight out and I could barely make out what looked like rose petals scattered on the blanket as well. Christmas lights were strewn up around the wall in awkward and hurried lines and I marveled at the fact that he was able to do all of this without making one damn sound.

There was a small maroon box sitting next to one of the plates on the blanket and the little amount of breath I still had in my lungs got caught in my throat as I rested both of my hands on my stomach.

He couldn't… not yet, right? I mean, it's only been about a week and a half at most.

It didn't have to be a ring. It could be something else entirely. I was probably freaking out over absolutely nothing.

Again.

"Breathe," he whispered, reaching out and grabbing my elbow in his hand.

I sucked in a sharp breath, swallowing hard and looking over at him. He was nervous, shifting the weight on his feet and smiling shakily at me.

"Is this… is it okay? Too much?"

I shook my head slowly, reaching over and grabbing his hand, lacing our fingers together as I looked back at the spread in front of me.

"It's… perfect."

He tugged me close to him again, leaning in to me and pressing his lips against my temple.

"I love you, Bella."

I closed my eyes again, leaning in to him and smiling slowly as I squeezed his hand.

"I love you too."

My stomach chose that time to grumble again and he laughed, kissing my temple again before backing away and leading me over to the blanket. I eagerly stepped on to it, plopping down onto one of the pillows and waiting for him to do the same.

He sat next to me, letting go of my hand and picking up the little maroon box sitting next to the plate.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times before holding it out to me, his bottom lip caught in between his teeth. I laughed at him, taking the box and leaning over to kiss him softly.

"Breathe," I whispered as I backed away.

"Smart ass," he mumbled, moving closer to me and resting one hand on my knee. "Open it."

I took a deep breath and quickly flipped the top open, confused when I saw a key sitting nestled against the velvet inside. I looked over at him again, my eyebrow automatically quirking up.

All right, so it wasn't a ring. That was perfectly okay with me. Can't say as I was expecting a key, though.

"It's to my front door," he said softly. "You still don't have any furniture and if you wanted to just…" He reached up with his other hand and ran it nervously through his hair. "If you wanted to stay here… I want you to stay here… you can… fuck," he whispered, shaking his head and looking over at me. "You hate it."

"No."

"You don't want it."

"Oh, I want it."

He huffed, his lips twitching slightly as he stared at me.

"Spit it out, Edward," I said softly, barely able to contain the hope and absolute fucking elation making its way through my body.

I wanted him to _say it_.

"You can move in here if you want," he said quickly, the words stringing together. "You don't have to if you don't want to and if this is too soon or it's too much, then it's okay. I want you to have it anyway. I just don't want you sleeping on that air mattress anymore and I want you to be comfortable and if it's too much-"

I cut him off, practically leaping on him as I wrapped my arms around his neck and forcefully fused my lips to his, the box snapping shut as I held it tightly in my fist and crawled into his lap. His hands were on my sides immediately, his mouth working just as furiously against mine.

"Not too much," I breathed, kissing a trail across his cheek and down to his neck.

"Even if you just want to wait to get new furniture, I want you to have some place to stay."

I sat back and raised an eyebrow at him, pursing my lips and tilting my head.

"Do you want me to move in here?"

"Only if you want to."

I dropped the box into my lap and grabbed his face in my hands, squishing his cheeks together again and staring into his eyes.

"Do you want me to move in here?" I asked again.

He nodded and I dropped my hands from his face to rest them on his chest.

"Then ask me."

"That's what the damn key did!"

"The key can't talk."

"Bella," he whined, dropping his head back.

I took this opportunity to move in closer and press my lips against his throat, slowly moving my hands in massaging circles against his chest. My lips curved into a smile when I heard one of the strangled noises I'd gotten used to hearing from him slip through his lips.

"Ask me, Edward," I whispered, trailing my lips up to his ear, "I want to hear it from you."

"Will you move in here, Bella?" he asked, his breathing ragged.

I sat up straight, grinning as he growled and dragged his head back up.

"Yes," I said brightly.

"That wasn't right."

"Worked, though."

"You're going to hell."

"You'll be right there with me." I kissed him quickly. "Reserved seats and everything."

He sighed heavily, his arms winding tightly around my waist as he nodded and smirked crookedly at me.

"Wouldn't wanna be wherever you weren't anyway."

I grinned and kissed him again, my lips smacking against his before I grabbed the box and slid off of his lap.

"Where are you…?"

He stopped talking as my stomach interrupted him. I laughed nervously, set the box down next to me and quickly grabbed my empty plate and a fork. I looked over at him and saw that he was smirking, his lips twitching in what I assumed was a sad attempt not to laugh at me before he leaned over and kissed me again.

"We're gonna be just fine," he whispered before he grabbed his own plate and started shoveling French toast onto it.

I smiled and nodded, looking at the box from the corner of my eye as I grabbed a few pieces of my own.

Yes. We were.

~*~

**Probably not what you were expecting, huh? I'll probably be writing outtakes about some of their more interesting adventures during the week, but thought that it had little to do with the entire thing and left them out of the main story.**

**Stop in at the Twilighted boards for this story if you feel so inclined. I'm around.**

**Once again, I adore you guys, you are amazing and I couldn't ask for better people reading and reviewing.**


	27. Never Say Never

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**You guys are amazing. I have no other words for you. I really should find something more to say, but really… amazing just seems to be able to cover everything I'm thinking of.**

**Come join us on the Twilighted boards; we're all a fun bunch. I love you girls!**

**And for all the recommendations and followers and reviewers and well, hell… all of you, I love and adore and bow down to each and every one of you. Even if some of you don't agree with where I'm going right now.**

**I have a very strong song suggestion for this chapter. I highly recommend listening to The Fray's **_**Never Say Never**_** while reading. Unless you don't want to cry; then I highly recommend that you **_**don't**_** listen to it haha.**

**And I've gotten quite a few repeat questions that I'll just answer right now…**

**Well, some of them. Others I can't answer at the moment because then I'll be giving away too much of future chapters.**

**~Q&A~**

_**How long will this story be?**_

**I have no idea. I'm writing as I go along. When I think the end is near, you'll all be the first to know. I don't write with outlines; I just write.**

_**Is it over?**_

**No. There will be a distinct note at the end and/or beginning of the last chapter that will alert you to the ending of the story.**

_**The Jessica Issue.**_

**Will be resolved soon. Please stop freaking out.**

_**The Premiere Issue.**_

**Will also be figured out soon. Please stop freaking out.**

_**Will Rosalie and Emmett meet?**_

**Yes. Eventually. I don't know exactly when but it'll happen.**

**Okay, I'm done, finally. Beginning is slightly NSFW or school. Other than that, enjoy!**

~*~

***Edward***

I jumped awake when the alarm went off the next morning and groaned, reaching over and slapping at it.

We'd spent most of the afternoon in the living room on the blanket, reassuring each other, being ourselves and enjoying each other.

Thoroughly.

But reality hit us at around eight and I realized that I had to pack. I didn't have much but it didn't mean that I would be able to get everything packed right before I left without forgetting a mass amount of things.

She insisted that we leave the blanket, lights and candles right where they were. I didn't quite understand, but didn't argue with her about it as I pulled my pajama pants back on and waited for her to throw the shirt back on.

We spent the rest of the night combing through the house and packing everything into the two suitcases I'd arrived with three weeks ago. Everything that could be packed was sitting downstairs by the front door, leaning against the wall and taunting me each time I walked by.

That was when I decided it was time to go to bed. And then I spent the rest of the night memorizing Bella's every curve, freckle, noise and facial expression.

I shifted slightly as images from the last day tore through my foggy brain, causing a reaction I was pretty sure Bella wouldn't want to help me with first thing in the morning. Especially _this_ morning when we were both completely aware of what the blaring alarm clock meant.

Bella groaned into my chest before she flung herself on top of me and buried her face in my neck, grumbling something that I didn't understand at all.

_That_ didn't help my situation any, either.

I laughed groggily, wrapping my arms around her once the alarm was off and sighing quietly.

"No," she mumbled, her arms snaking underneath me and wrapping around my back.

"I know," I whispered, splaying my hands out on her bare back and turning my head to bury it in her hair.

"We can go to Tahiti," she suggested against my neck. "No one will find us there."

I laughed, trailing my hands up and down her spine.

"Sounds good to me."

"Good. I'll call the airport and switch your ticket."

"'Kay," I mumbled, laughing quietly.

"What time is it?"

I looked over at the clock before burying my face back into her hair and tightening my arms around her.

"Seven fifteen."

My eyes closed when I felt her lips pressing against my neck, one of her hands moving from underneath me to run lightly up and down my right side. I shivered a little, feeling myself growing impossibly harder at every movement of her hand.

Maybe she was willing to help me out after all.

"Bella," I whispered, swallowing hard and fisting one of my hands into the ends of her hair.

She kissed down to my chest, her hand running down and resting on my hip. I moaned softly as she trailed her fingertips over me and moved my hand from her hair to move them up and brush over her breasts.

She moved up, her body brushing against mine before her lips were on my ear.

"I love you," she whispered.

"I love you too."

She kissed the edge of my jaw before slowly sinking down onto me. We both moaned, my hands moving down to her hips and my fingertips digging in as my breathing started to pick up. She placed her hands on my forearms, steadying herself before she started to move.

I would never get tired of this feeling. I would never forget what it felt like to be inside of her and be connected with her in a way that I'd never been with anyone else before.

I lifted my hips up to meet hers, throwing my head back into the pillow and breathing out another moan.

"Edward," she moaned, her fingernails digging into my arms as she rocked her hips against mine.

I opened my eyes, looking up to find that her eyes were closed and her mouth was partially open. The light shining in through the windows bounced off of her skin, illuminating every little part of her.

I moved my hands from her hips to quickly grab hers and link our fingers together. She squeezed my hands tightly, her head lazily tipping forward and her hair falling in front of her.

"Mine," she moaned as she began to move faster above me. "You're _mine_."

Her words shot straight through me and I moaned, digging my heels into the mattress and thrusting up into her.

"Yes. Always."

She circled her hips above mine and I breathed out something between a moan, a gasp and some kind of weird choking noise as my hands tightened around hers.

"Bella," I groaned, my hips still working as she continued to swirl hers above me. "Oh, fuck, Bella."

She threw her head back, her hips matching mine again as she flexed her fingers against my hand.

"You're mine," she breathed out on a moan.

I made some sort of noise in agreement, lost in the sensation of her tightening around me.

"Yours," I grunted, my mouth falling open as she started grinding faster against me. "I'm yours."

She raised our hands up a little higher, her head falling forward again as I felt her shaking.

"Edward," she breathed, her fingers shooting straight out before gripping back onto mine tightly. "So…"

"Yes," I whispered, throwing my head back into the pillow. "Come on, Bella."

She cried out and I felt her burst around me. I kept thrusting into her, following soon after her and quickly untangling our hands and wrapping her in my arms as she fell forward. She kept her head on my chest, lazily pressing small kisses there as our chests worked against each other in an attempt to breathe normally again.

"Tahiti?" she finally breathed out.

"Tahiti," I agreed softly, rubbing my hands over her back and turning my head to kiss her cheek.

"Didn't mean to attack you."

I laughed breathlessly, shaking my head as I slowly slid out of her and turned us on our sides.

"Never apologize for that, love," I whispered as I reached up with one hand to push hair from her face.

She looked up at me, her lips twisted to the side and I watched as tears started to fill her eyes.

Oh, no; not now. If she fell apart now, there's no fucking way I'd be able to get on that plane in a few hours. I was going to have a hell of a time as it was but this was just going to make it ten times worse.

"Hey," I whispered, cupping her cheek in my palm and rubbing my thumb underneath her eye. "February will be here before we know it."

She nodded, pressing her lips together and looking down at my chest.

"I know," she said quietly, still nodding and reaching up to trace patterns on my chest with her fingertip. "I'm just gonna miss you."

I leaned forward and pressed my lips to her forehead, leaving them there as I closed my eyes tightly and took a deep breath.

"I'll call you at least six times a day," I began, smiling softly as she managed a laugh, "and I'll tell you all about how boring my day has been whether you want to hear it or not. It'll be like I never left."

"And I can let you know how the house is."

"I definitely want to know how the house is." I laughed a little, pulling back from her and dragging my hand back to her hair as I opened my eyes. "You're sure you want to stay here?"

She nodded, her eyes still shining with tears but her face clear of them.

"More than sure. I'll start moving things in tonight."

"Are you gonna ask someone to help you?"

She shook her head, looking up at me and biting her bottom lip.

"It'll give me time to work through… everything."

"Bella," I whispered, a sharp shooting pain making its way through my body.

I knew that it was going to be hard for her – hell, it was going to be hard for me, too – but I didn't want her to have to work through anything. I just wanted her to be _okay_ and to know that everything was going to be fine. _We_ were going to be fine and this separation would only make us stronger in the long run.

We'd make it through this. I love her too damn much not to believe that.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, shaking her head and rolling onto her back. "Give me a minute."

I hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her back to me, holding her tightly and looking down at her face. A tear had slipped out and she quickly reached up to wipe it away, her eyes focused intently on the ceiling.

"I'm okay," she stated, sucking a deep breath and finally connecting her eyes with mine.

"Are you?"

She nodded, reaching up with one hand to run it through my hair and pull my head down to hers. She kissed me softly, her lips barely grazing mine as she rolled back onto her side and pressed her chest against mine again.

"So how are we doing this?" she asked, slowly pulling away from me. "Am I riding with you or driving myself?"

"How will you get home if you ride with me?"

I didn't want to let go of her for longer than I had to today. I wanted to be selfish and tell her to take a cab home; I didn't care that it was an hour away from here and the cab fare would be outrageous. I wanted as much time with her today as possible.

"I'll call Angela or Rose. Or, it's closer to my dad than either of them are so maybe I'll call him," she mused quietly, drawing her hand through my hair and letting it rest on the back of my neck.

"Wouldn't it be easier to drive?" I asked softly, swallowing the bit of panic I felt at being apart from her before I absolutely had to be today.

"Probably," she agreed, nodding. "But I'm not giving up any more time with you than I have to."

I breathed out a laugh and leaned down to kiss her again, running one hand up and down her back.

"I love you," I whispered between kisses, keeping her tight against me. "I love you so much, Bella."

"I love you too."

I broke away from her and buried my face into her shoulder, wrapping my arms tightly around her and for a minute, I was able to pretend that it was last Monday and we had an entire week left to be together. For a minute, we had another week to do anything and everything we wanted without any interruptions from anyone.

"We should get in the shower," she whispered into my ear, one of her fingertips making small patterns on the back of my shoulder as she broke me out of my thoughts. "You've still got some things that you need to pack."

I heard her voice shake and took a deep breath, closing my eyes tightly and pressing a kiss against her neck.

_I don't wanna leave you. Wait for me. Don't listen to anything anyone else has to say. Believe in me like I now believe in you. Come __**with**__ me._

"Yeah," I whispered back, nodding and kissing her neck again.

She kissed my ear before slowly rolling away from me and crawling out of the bed. I watched her as she stretched, her arms above her head and the muscles in her back twisting and rippling as she reached to the ceiling.

I scrambled to her side of the bed, grabbing her hips to keep her in place as I leaned forward to kiss the small of her back. Her hands dropped onto mine as I swung my legs off the side of the bed.

"You're beautiful, Bella," I whispered, dragging my lips up her spine.

She shivered, her fingers linking with mine as I stood up and pressed kisses against her shoulders. I wrapped our arms around her waist, resting my chin on her shoulder and holding her tightly against me.

"How long is the flight?" she asked softly, her voice wavering.

I closed my eyes tightly and tilted my head to press another kiss against her shoulder.

"Seven hours. I have to catch a connecting flight in Chicago before I get to Seattle." I placed my chin back on her shoulder, slowly opening my eyes again. "I'll call you when I touch down in Chicago."

She nodded and I distinctly heard her sniffle before she squeezed my hands.

"And when you get to Seattle."

"And when I get to my parents' house."

"And before you go to sleep."

"And when I wake up."

She nodded and I watched out of the corner of my eye as a tear trailed down her cheek and she quickly pinched her bottom lip in between her teeth.

"We should shower," she managed, nodding again. "Lots to do today."

"You'll see that it won't be that bad, Bella," I whispered, swallowing hard and praying that I was right. "We're gonna talk all the time and then February will be here and we'll be wondering where all the time went."

She continued to nod and I squeezed my arms as tightly around her as I dared, holding her against me and burying my face into her neck.

"What do you guys do for Christmas? Any big parties?"

I pulled my eyebrows together, looking up slightly and staring over at the closet doors in front of us.

"What?"

"Distract me," she almost begged, her fingernails digging into the palms of my hands. "Just for a little while; please?"

I took a deep breath and nodded slightly, turning us in the direction of the bedroom door and slowly starting to walk with her towards the bathroom.

"We don't usually have any sort of Christmas parties, no," I said quietly. "New Year's Eve is when my parents and Alice pull out all the stops and invite what feels like thousands of people to our house."

"That sounds really nice, though."

"What about you?" I asked as we made it into the bathroom and walked over to the bathtub. "Does your family do anything for Christmas?"

"Just dinner at my dad's with what's left of our family and my step-mother's family. There aren't too many people that come over, but there's enough."

She bent down and quickly flicked on the hot water before standing back up again, both of us staring down at the running water as if it might bite us upon contact.

_One step closer_.

"What are you doing for New Year's Eve?" I asked, swallowing hard and imagining all the possibilities.

"Probably going out with Rose, Angela and Ben to some bar in Saratoga." She shook her head slightly. "I'm not really looking forward to that."

"You'll probably have fun."

"Not without you," she whispered before bending down once again and pulling up on the lever to start the shower.

My heart cracked just that much more at knowing that I wouldn't be there with her to kiss her when the ball dropped or watch as she had too much to drink and got completely shit-faced before passing out on me at the end of the night.

She pulled on my hands as she stepped into the shower and I crawled in after her, finally letting go of her hands to pull the curtain closed.

"Make me a promise," I said quickly, watching as the water cascaded down her body.

"What's that?"

"Be as normal as you possibly can be when I'm gone? Go out with Angela and Rosalie and have _fun_, Bella. Don't think about me when you're out; go out to be with your friends and forget about everything else."

"I'm always going to think of you," she said, tilting her head back to finish getting the rest of her hair wet. "You can't ask me not to think of you."

"Well, no," I grumbled, shaking my head and trying to reword everything. That hadn't come out right. "I want you to think of me, but not to the point where you can't have fun."

I nodded, proud of myself for finally getting something out right. It had taken me damn near three weeks to do it, but I'd finally accomplished being able to string a sentence together without tripping over my own tongue.

"And I want you to do the same." She reached for her shampoo, one eyebrow raised as she poured it into her palm. "If I can't be miserable, then you can't be either."

"Fine," I sighed, nodding and moving under the spray of the shower head as she scrubbed the shampoo into her hair.

"Fine," she agreed, smiling slightly at me as she continued to work the shampoo in.

We finished the rest of the shower talking aimlessly about plans for Christmas and New Year's Eve before getting out, drying off and falling into an easy rhythm of brushing our teeth and getting ready for the day.

There weren't really any words I could think of to describe just how much I was going to miss all of this; waking up with her, showering with her, and just being this comfortable with her.

I grabbed all of my toiletries once we were finished, cradling them in my arms and clenching my jaw together when I saw Bella bite down on her shaking bottom lip before she looked away from me and hastily tied her hair up into a ponytail. I kissed the back of her neck once her hair was out of the way before walking into the bedroom and dropping everything on the bed.

I threw the towel I had wrapped around my waist into the laundry basket before walking over to the wardrobe and grabbing the only pair of boxers, jeans and shirt left in there. Bella walked in as I was pulling my jeans over my hips, still wrapped in a towel and I looked over at her as she bent down to grab the t-shirt she'd been wearing to bed.

"Do you want this back?" she asked softly, looking up at me quickly before looking at the pile of stuff on the bed.

"That's yours, Bella." I snatched up my pajama pants from the floor and threw them into the laundry basket as well. "I don't mean to leave them there…"

"I'll take care of them," she said quickly, offering me a shaky smile before she walked over to the duffel bag she still had her clothes in.

"You're going to unpack that eventually, aren't you?"

She looked over at me, clutching a green t-shirt and a pair of jeans to her chest as she stood up and nodded.

"Something else for me to do tonight."

I ran a hand through my wet hair before I walked over to her and grabbed her in my arms.

Somewhere between leaving the bathroom and walking into the bedroom, it had become awkward between us. Tense. And I didn't like it one damn bit.

This was _not_ how we were going to spend our last few hours together. I wasn't going to walk around on eggshells with her and I wasn't going to let her do the same with me. We'd jumped that hurdle as soon as she spent the first night with me and if I could help it, we weren't going back to that stage of the relationship. We were _fine_ where we were and nothing – not even my leaving – was going to change that.

She dropped her clothes to the floor, quickly wrapped her arms around my waist and buried her head into my chest. I ran one hand down her hair, my fingers easily sliding through the wet strands as I listened to her heavy breathing.

"I know we're going to be fine," she started, and her voice was strained, "but I…"

"I know," I whispered, dropping my chin lightly onto the top of her head and sucking in a deep breath.

If she said what I thought she was going to, I wouldn't have been able to deny it. I wouldn't have been able to leave if she'd said that she didn't want me to.

We stood there for a few more minutes before she backed away from me, stood up on her toes and kissed me softly.

"We need to get going."

I nodded, kissing her once more before turning and grabbing my t-shirt from its spot on the side of the bed. I pulled it over my head, straightening it out quickly before I grabbed all the crap on the end of the bed and started towards the bedroom door.

I turned once I reached it, finding that Bella had picked up her own clothing from the floor but was just standing there, one of her hands plucking at her bottom lip as she stared absently at the door.

"Bella."

Her eyes snapped to mine and I swallowed hard at the tears swimming in them again. She waved me off, offering me a shaky laugh before she set her clothes on the bed and started to get dressed.

"Bella?" I asked softly, tightening my hold on the bottle of toothpaste resting in the crook of my arm before it could fall.

She looked up at me again, her bottom lip caught in between her teeth as she held up a pink satin bra that I vaguely remember seeing on her at some point.

"Hm?"

"I love you."

"I love you too," she whispered, nodding once and offering me a small smile before she shed the towel and turned her back to me.

I sighed quietly and walked out of the room, down the stairs and into the living room. I dropped the pile of crap onto the floor and angrily stared at one of my suitcases before I grabbed it and ripped it open.

Had to be an actor. Had to go to California and try my hand at acting. Couldn't just be a doctor that would keep me in one place; no. I had to be something _better_.

I threw my things into the half-full suitcase before hastily zipping it back up and kicking it once for good measure.

And then I sighed, reaching up and tangling my hands in my hair. I dropped my head back and stared up at the ceiling, slowly shaking my head.

If I hadn't been an actor, I never would've come to Lake George. And if I'd never come to Lake George, I never would've bought this house. And if I'd never bought this house, I never would've met Bella. And if I'd never met Bella, I never would've known what it was like to finally be in love.

I slowly dragged my hands down my face before I tipped my head back up and grabbed the keys to the Volvo. I snatched my jacket from the rocking chair and slipped it over my shoulders as I unlocked the door and yanked it open. Grabbing the handles of the suitcases once I'd looped my laptop case over my head, I rolled them behind me as I walked onto the porch and down the stairs. Popping the trunk, I threw everything into it before slamming it shut, crawling into the front seat to stick the key in the ignition so it would be warm when we got into it and walking back to the house.

Bella was just coming down the stairs as I closed the door and when she looked over at me, all traces of tears were gone. She wasn't as happy as she normally would've been, but she looked better. And while I still felt like shit, it made it a little easier to see that she wasn't crying anymore.

I hated when she cried. I hated it more when she cried because of _me_.

"Did you want something quick to eat?" she asked as she walked into the kitchen.

"What'd you have in mind?"

I shed my coat, throwing it back on the rocking chair and following her into the kitchen. She was holding up the package of Jimmy Dean sandwiches and I laughed, nodding.

"Yeah, that works."

She nodded and closed the freezer door, walking over to the counter and setting the box down. I walked up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist and resting my chin on her shoulder as she grabbed a paper towel and unwrapped the frozen _thing_.

"You promise to call me?"

"I promise."

She nodded again and I walked with her as she moved to the microwave and stuck the wrapped sandwich into it. She turned in my arms, looking up at me and tilting her head to the side.

"Sorry for being all emotional."

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head and pulling her tight against me again.

"Don't be. It's hard for me, too."

"I don't want to make it harder for you."

"Love, no matter what way you look at it, it's gonna be hard. But we know that we'll get through this." I leaned down and rested my forehead against hers, waiting until her eyes locked with mine. "I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with you; we have to."

She smiled and nodded, brushing the end of her nose against mine and wrapping her arms around my neck.

"I know we will. It's a lot to get used to, you know?" she asked softly, standing up on her toes to kiss me softly. "Feels like I just got you."

"And you'll always have me, Bella. For a little while, it's gonna be at a distance, but don't think that that'll change anything for us."

"For a little while?"

I smiled softly and nodded, kissing her again.

"I'm not living without you for very long."

"I don't…"

"We'll figure it out," I interrupted quietly, rubbing my thumbs over her back. "I love you, Bella, and I refuse to live without you."

"Refuse, huh?" she asked, drawing in a shaky breath.

I smiled softly and nodded, kissing her once more. "Abso-fucking-lutely refuse."

She laughed before stepping up and burying her nose in my neck. I held her tightly, running my hands over her back and closing my eyes. The microwave beeped at us a few seconds later, forcing us to shift our positions again as Bella grabbed the sandwich and threw it on the counter next to us. I moved with her again as she walked further into the kitchen to grab a plate from the cabinet, unwrapping the sandwich and plopping it onto the plate.

"Eat," she said softly, holding it up at her side.

"Aren't you going to eat something?"

"Later. I can't right now. My stomach is in knots," she laughed half-heartedly before walking out of my arms and quickly handing me the plate.

I watched as she cleaned up the small mess she'd made, a lump in my throat as I stared down at the sandwich.

It suddenly didn't have the appeal it had had a few minutes before. Not that the appeal had been all that great to begin with, but it was even worse now.

I looked up at her and she raised an expectant eyebrow at me as she put the box back into the freezer.

"You'll get sick if you don't eat."

"Bella…"

She sighed heavily and walked over to me, snatching the sandwich off the plate and hastily biting in to it. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped before she practically threw the sandwich back onto the plate and began panting.

"Hot!" she managed, bringing one hand up to fan her mouth.

I laughed loudly, holding the plate up high enough that the sandwich wouldn't fall off as I practically doubled over.

"Not funny!" she managed, smacking my shoulder before closing her mouth and slowly starting to chew.

"Really funny," I choked out, dodging her hand as she tried to hit me again.

"You're supposed to," she swallowed and then panted some more, pressing a hand to her chest as she glared at me, "make sure I'm okay!"

"Are you okay?"

"No!"

I just laughed a little harder, forced to put the plate on the counter and lean against it to keep myself standing.

"You know, now I'm glad you're leaving," she grumbled, using one finger to wipe away imaginary cheese from her chin. "Laughing at me when I can't _feel my tongue_!"

That didn't help matters any and I slumped against the counter, landing on the floor when my arms gave out on me.

"Seriously fucking hurt," she mumbled, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring down at me.

I raised my arms up, holding them out to her and still laughing, completely unable to control it. Her face was priceless.

"Oh, no, I don't think so!" she exclaimed, pointing at me.

"Come here," I rasped, still laughing as she glared down at me. "Bella, come here."

"No! Now get off the floor."

"Bella," I laughed, leaning forward and sitting on my knees. "I'm sorry. Now come here."

"You're still laughing at me!"

"I'm sorry," I said, quickly pressing my lips together to hold in the laughter that was still begging to be let out.

"No you're not."

"Bella!" I exclaimed, lunging forward and grabbing onto her ankle as she started to walk out.

"Let go of my foot, Edward."

"No."

"Edward!" she shouted, looking down at me.

I looked up at her, licking my lips and laughing a little more when I saw that she was struggling to hold in her laughter as well.

"Bella!" I shouted back.

"Let go."

"Come down here."

"No."

"Please?"

"For _what_?"

Huffing, I sat up on my knees again and wrapped my arms around her waist, laughing as she screamed when I pulled her down with me and situated her comfortably on my lap.

"Okay, you've got me down here now. What do you want?"

I grinned at her twitching lips and kissed her roughly, pulling her tight against me and leaning back against the cabinets.

"I wanted to apologize the right way," I stated brightly when I pulled back from her.

"Hm," she mumbled, her eyes fluttering open.

"Am I forgiven?"

"'Spose so."

I laughed, kissing her again.

"How's your tongue?"

"Fine." She sighed heavily and pursed her lips at me. "That's not fair play, you know."

"But I love you."

"What does…? Edward, that doesn't even make sense!" she laughed, her arms winding around my neck and her hands tangling in my hair.

"Maybe not, but it's true."

She sighed again, shaking her head and smirking at me.

"Yeah, well, you're lucky that I love you, too." She leaned up and kissed my forehead. "Now let me up. You have to eat and we have to get going."

I sighed this time, kissing her once more before letting her stand up and doing the same. I watched as she walked around, checking everything that she possibly could and making sure that I had everything I needed to take with me.

I finished the sandwich, putting the plate in the dishwasher and walking into the dining room to stand next to her as she continued to look around the room. I wrapped an arm around her waist and looked down at her.

"You ready?" I asked softly.

She sucked in a deep breath, forced a smile on her face that had the ability to break my damn heart if she kept it up and then nodded.

"Yeah. Let's go."

We walked out, locking the door behind us and climbing into the car. I stared up at my house as I pulled the seat belt across my lap and swallowed hard.

Well, the house wouldn't be empty while I was gone. Bella would be living in it.

Without me.

I jumped a little when her hand slid into mine and looked over at her, saw the forced smile on her face and leaned over to kiss her again.

"You're sure you don't want to drive?" I asked as I sat back and placed our hands on the gear shift to put the car in reverse.

"I'm positive. I'll call my dad to come get me. It won't be a problem."

I nodded, taking a deep breath as I pulled out and shifted the car to drive, casting one more glance at the house before starting down the road.

This was going to be something close to hell.

We spent the majority of the ride in an awkwardly comfortable silence, our hands joined the entire time as we made our way to the airport. She started rambling to me at one point about having to deal with Leah for Christmas and I told her how insane Alice was with her decorations and making sure that absolutely everything was perfect for the relatives that wouldn't appreciate most of her hard work anyway.

And before I could even really comprehend it, I was parking the Volvo and we were walking into the rental office to hand in the keys once I had everything I needed out of the trunk.

That hour had disappeared, it seemed, and now we were officially out of time. My suitcases were checked in, my laptop was sitting at my feet, my flight was on time and the only thing left to do was pass through security.

It was already nine. We'd been standing here for about fifteen minutes, either staring at the security guard stationed behind the podium or staring at each other in a sad attempt to memorize every inch of the other.

Or maybe that was just me.

Regardless, she'd finally turned to me and grabbed my hands, her eyes already shining with tears as she looked at me again and demanded that I call her.

"As soon as you land," she stated, clutching onto my hands tightly.

I nodded, shaking my hands out of hers to wrap her in my arms and rest my cheek against the side of her head.

"You're gonna hear from me at least five times today alone, Bella," I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut tightly and tangling one of my hands into the ends of her hair.

"As long as I hear from you."

Her voice was strained again and I had all I could do to back away and grab her face in my hands. I didn't want to let her go even for just a minute to make her look at me; I just _did not_ want to let her go.

"All the damn time," I whispered, leaning down and resting my forehead against hers. "You have my cell phone number, right?"

She nodded, placing her hands on my wrists and shifting her watery eyes to mine as she bit her bottom lip.

"I have it."

"If you need me – and I don't give a shit what time it is – you'll call me."

She nodded again, her thumbs rubbing up and down against the undersides of my wrists.

"And you do the same," she managed, her bottom lip quivering as she blew out a breath. "I'll wake up and talk to you; I don't care."

I laughed, surprised to find that my own voice was slightly wavering and that my eyes were starting to tear.

Great. It was official. I was turning into a woman.

What self respecting man cried at an airport when saying goodbye? I had never been emotional when having to leave any place before and my tear ducts were choosing _now_ to act up?

But with one look back into Bella's eyes, I didn't care. I love her and damn it, it fucking hurt to know that I had to leave without her. So I'd be a woman for a few damn hours because she was worth it.

"Okay," I managed, nodding.

"I love you," she whispered, moving her hands from my wrists to step forward and wrap her arms around my neck. "And I'm gonna miss you like crazy but I know," she swallowed hard and pressed a kiss against my neck, "that we're gonna be okay."

My arms wound tightly around her waist and I closed my eyes, burying my nose into her hair and taking a deep breath.

"Yes," I whispered, swallowing hard and nodding. "We're gonna be more than okay, Bella. This is just temporary, all right?"

She nodded, one of her hands cupping the back of my head and her fingers twisting in my hair.

"Yeah."

"So there's nothing to worry about," I choked out a laugh. "Because we're gonna be fine."

"We _are_," she whispered fiercely against my skin.

I nodded, letting my hands roam on her back and my eyes get as damn watery as they pleased.

"Kiss me and go," she whispered, sniffling. "Because if you don't go now, I'll never let you."

I squeezed my eyes even tighter together, not caring at all when I felt twin tears roll down my cheeks before I opened my eyes and backed away slightly. Her watery eyes met mine before I leaned down and pressed my lips against hers, squeezing her tightly against me. Her hand tightened in my hair as she opened her mouth, her tongue gently touching on my bottom lip.

"Go," she whispered, pulling back from me and moving her hand from my hair.

I pulled her back against me, my lips on hers and my tongue eagerly meeting hers as I fisted my hands into the sides of her jacket. She wrapped her hands around my neck, responding to me quickly and insistently.

I pulled back slowly, pressing light kisses against her lips before completely moving from her. Reaching up, I placed my hands on her cheeks and wiped the tears away, chuckling a little as she did the same for me.

"You have to go," she whispered, nodding once at me.

"I know."

"I'll talk to you in a few hours."

I nodded, leaning down to kiss her again before I took a step back from her and reached down to grab my laptop case. I slung it over my shoulder and when I looked back to see her face, my heart fucking broke. She was biting down on her bottom lip, her eyes were shining with tears that were almost brimming over and her nostrils were flaring with every breath she took.

My eyes continued to water and I shook my head, reaching for her and grabbing her hand to pull her to me again.

"February," I whispered, pressing my lips to her forehead.

She nodded and I listened to her sniffle as she placed her free hand on my chest, directly over my heart.

"I love you," she said quietly, her voice high and shaking.

"I love you, too, Bella," I whispered, moving to kiss her once more.

I turned quickly on my heel once I stepped away from her, reaching up to dig the heels of my hands into my eyes as I made my way over to the security guard stationed behind the podium. I handed him my ticket, looking over my shoulder to see that Bella was still standing where I'd left her, her arms tightly wound around her waist and her bottom lip back between her teeth. She managed a shaky smile at me, waving. I waved back at her, managing my own shaky smile before turning around when the guard tapped my shoulder.

I took the ticket back from him, sucking in a deep breath and thanking him before I walked away.

I didn't look back. I was scared that if I did and if Bella was still standing there like a piece of her had just been ripped away, I'd never get on the damn plane. As it was, I didn't know how the hell I was going to make it to February without seeing her.

Each step I took away from her was torture. It felt like I was being torn in half, each footfall echoing loudly in my ears and only making my eyes water that much more.

I didn't even want to know what other people must've been thinking while they were looking at me. Hell, I didn't care if anyone recognized me at this point; nothing else mattered to me except for the fact that every inch of me fucking _hurt_.

I made it through security and walked down the terminal like a zombie, not looking up at anyone for longer than I had to and only saying a quick _excuse me_ to the lady I was apparently sitting next to for the rest of the flight once I'd mechanically stored my bag in the overhead compartments.

I flopped into the seat, closing my eyes and resting my head in my hand, taking slow, deep breaths in an effort to ease the ache in my heart.

_February. That's only two months from now, Edward. Two months and she'll be back in your arms and you won't feel like this anymore._

I swallowed hard, slowly opening my eyes to stare at the seat in front of me and drop my hand on the arm rest.

I could wait until February. Hell, I'd waited this long to find her to begin with. I was more than capable of waiting two more months to see her again.

Fuck, I'd wait forever for her. And two months out of that forever is completely doable.


	28. Chapter 28

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**I cannot begin to tell all of you how much I love you. I got the most reviews for the last chapter than I did for any of the other ones I've posted and I just can't begin to tell you how much it amazed me. I **_**am**_** sorry for making all of you cry, though.**

**So, as a request, I'm putting a warning for this chapter. The beginning might be tear-worthy.**

**Oh, yeah, so this chapter is twenty-five pages long. I know that some of you said you didn't like the longer chapters, but this specific chapter has been bouncing around inside of my head since I started writing this. And a **_**lot**_** of shit goes on so hopefully that'll make up for it.**

**Thank you to the girls on the Twilighted boards who distract me with amazingly hot Robward pictures and to Angie, who gets stuck dealing with me throughout every single damn chapter.**

**More of my rambling at the bottom. For now, enjoy!**

~*~

***Bella***

He disappeared from my sight and I fell into the conveniently located chair behind me, my entire body losing the ability to stand up any longer. My eyes completely clouded over with tears and I let them fall freely this time, staring at the path he'd taken when he'd walked away from me. I pressed my lips together, clasping my hands and pressing them in between my knees as I continued to stare, unblinking, at the bottom of the security guard's podium.

He was gone. He'd left. I let him leave.

_I let him leave me_.

I slumped back into the chair, crossing my arms over my chest and slowly shaking my head.

He hadn't actually _left_ me. He'd be back. And I'd see him in February. We were going to talk all the damn time and we'd be able to get through this until then.

I leaned forward again, moving my arms to bury my hands in my hair and rest my elbows on my knees as I tried to control the shuddering breaths that were escaping my mouth while staring at the ugly brown carpet.

It felt like I was falling apart. Half of my heart had just disappeared onto a plane bound for Washington and it felt like I couldn't function anymore.

I was vaguely aware of the people passing by, some of them stopping in front of me and possibly saying something to me, but I heard nothing outside of the rushing in my ears and the pounding of my heart.

I'd have to go back to his house without him. I'd be staying in his home – in his little safe haven of solitude that he'd accepted me into without question – without him. Everything would be the same; the blanket, pillows and rose petals would still be on the floor when I walked into the living room, the dishes would still be in the dishwasher, the laundry would still be in the basket at the end of the bed upstairs. Everything would be the same except that he wouldn't be there with me. None of his personal things were there anymore; his shampoo, razor, and cologne that he rarely used… all of it was packed into one of those suitcases and following him clear across the country.

It was just me now, surrounded by his furniture and able to torture myself with remembering every little thing we did the entire time we were together.

I don't know how long I sat in that chair, hunched over and letting my tears fall onto the ugly brown carpet but I barely noticed when someone sat down in the seat next to me.

I wiped my cheeks off, taking a deep breath before leaning back and resting my head on the back of the seat, my eyes closed as I took a few deep breaths.

I couldn't sit here for the rest of the day no matter how much I may have wanted to. I needed to get up, get to a pay phone and call a cab so that I could go home. I'd pull myself together as much as I could tomorrow; today I wanted to grieve and mope and be as fucking miserable as possible. And I wanted to do it alone.

I placed my hands on the arm rests, standing up until I felt a hand on my wrist. I squeaked out a scream, snatching my hand away and looking over to my left to see none other than my father looking up at me.

My breath _whooshed_ out of my lungs in something close to relief and confusion as I flopped back down into the seat.

What the hell was he doing here? How did he know that I was here? I hadn't called him.

"You're going to be all over the internet again tomorrow," he said quietly, his eyes moving from mine to scan the airport.

"What?" I asked, shaking my head slightly and pulling my eyebrows together.

"In the five minutes or so that I've been sitting here with you, at least ten people have walked by with cameras and their phones out to snap pictures of you like this."

I sighed again and quickly ran my hands through my hair again, shaking my head and clenching my eyes together tightly.

So it was starting. And I didn't have enough in me to really care about any of it. Edward was right; this was my life now and it was something that I had to deal with and accept.

"Come on. I'll take you home."

"How'd you know I was here?"

He stood up and waited for me to do the same, quickly wrapping an arm around my waist as I swayed a little on my feet.

As much as I loved my father and was slightly thankful that he was here so that I wouldn't be spending an enormous amount of money on a cab fare, his wasn't the arm I wanted around me. He wasn't the one I wanted to be leaning against right now. He wasn't the one I wanted to be clutching on to like he was my lifeline.

The one I wanted was _gone_.

Tears filled my eyes again and I involuntarily turned to bury my face in Charlie's shoulder, one of my hands fisting in the back of his dark blue jacket as he led me toward the escalator.

"He called me from the plane," he said quietly, leading me through the sliding glass doors as we stepped off the escalator. "He wanted to make sure that you'd called me to get you."

I barely contained the sob that threatened my throat, my fingers tightening in his jacket as we walked outside and toward the visitor parking lot.

"He sounded like shit."

"Dad," I whined, shaking my head and reaching up with my free hand to dig the heel of it into my eyes.

"Just an observation, Bells."

"Keep your observations to yourself, please."

Hearing that he sounded something close to what I might've been feeling wasn't helping me at all right now. While I didn't expect him to be all fucking happy about the fact that we were apart for two months, I also didn't want to hear that he probably felt like I did.

We both knew that this was going to happen. We both knew that he'd have to leave and we both knew that neither of us was going to be very happy about it. We were very much aware of how we'd feel and I didn't want to hear anymore about it.

"Sorry," he grumbled as we made our way to the police cruiser.

He opened the door for me and I plopped ungracefully into the front seat, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around my shins. Charlie climbed into the driver's seat and I heard him close the door, listening as his seat belt clicked into place.

"Bella."

I looked over at him, watching as he motioned to my own seat belt before huffing, placing my feet on the floor and pulling it across my lap. He nodded happily, backing out of the space and starting towards the little glass box to hand in the visitor's ticket.

I pulled my knees back to my chest, burying my nose in them and closing my eyes tightly as he pulled out of the airport, my heart still sitting in that seat on the second floor as I watched Edward walk away from me.

We were both quiet for the first forty-five minutes of the drive and it wasn't until we were pulling off of exit twenty-one that I said something to him again.

"I'm moving in to his house."

The car slammed to a stop at the end of the ramp and I chanced a look over at him, resting my cheek against my knees as I met his wide eyes with my own.

"What?" he asked slowly, blinking at me.

"I'm moving in to his house," I said again, quietly.

"Why?"

"He asked me to."

"You do everything he asks you to?"

"My house has nothing in it, dad," I started quietly, swallowing hard. "There's too much of Jake in there and I want nothing to do with it."

"So you're going to sell your house and move into the one across the street? Bella, he's not even _here_!"

"I'm aware of that!" I snapped, briefly closing my eyes tightly and forcing myself to take a deep breath. "But at least he has furniture in his place! He's got a bed I can sleep in!"

"I really don't think that's a good idea," he grumbled, turning back to the road and finally pulling off of the ramp.

"Why?" I challenged, slowly letting my feet fall to the floor of the car and placing my hands in my lap.

"How long have you known this guy? How do you know he's not just…?"

"Do _not_ say it, dad," I warned, narrowing my eyes at him. "You don't know anything about him."

"He's an actor, Bella; what more do I really need to know?"

"You said that he wasn't all that bad!"

He grunted and I watched as his hands tightened around the steering wheel. I rolled my eyes and leaned my head against the head rest, taking a deep breath.

"He asked me to go with him, you know," I said quietly, sitting up straight and looking over at him again. "Wanted me to go live with him in California."

I watched as Charlie's face paled slightly before his jaw tensed and he narrowed his eyes at the red light we were currently sitting in front of, the annoying _click, click_ of the blinker and the rumbling of the engine the only noises to be heard.

"Why didn't you?" he finally managed as the light turned green and he put his foot back on the gas.

"For you, Rose, Angela and the bookstore. I stayed for you," I grumbled, splaying my hands on my thighs and looking out the window.

He was quiet after that and fifteen minutes later, he was pulling into Edward's driveway. I dug my key ring out of my jacket pocket and opened the door, looking over when I heard Charlie's door shut as well.

"Do you want some coffee or something?" I asked, walking up the porch steps and stuffing the key in the door.

"Do you love him?"

The door swung open and I slowly turned on my heel to gape at him.

"What?"

"Well, do you?" he asked gruffly, jamming his hands into his coat pockets as he stood at the base of the porch stairs and looked up at me.

"Yes."

"Does he make you happy?"

"Yes."

"Do you know what I've wanted for you ever since you were born, Bella?" he asked, sighing heavily and leaning against the porch railing.

I slowly shook my head, swallowing hard. Fuck, I couldn't handle many more heart-to-heart's today. Especially when it felt like mine had just been ripped out and tap-danced on for a few hours.

"I wanted you to be a good person. I wanted you to be someone other people could look up to and adore and use as their role model, I guess. I wanted you to be strong enough to handle everything thrown your way and I wanted you to have a good head on your shoulders to make the right decisions throughout your life."

I watched as he fidgeted a little, looking down and playing with his hands as he shifted his weight on his feet.

"Most importantly, I wanted you to follow your heart and be happy with whatever you did, Bella." He nodded at the open door behind me as I continued to gape at him. "Don't stay if you're only staying for everyone else. Stay because you want to."

"Dad…"

"Think about it, Bella. And if you need help moving anything in here, call me when you're ready."

I nodded, my mouth snapping back into place as I blinked slowly at him. He was accepting all of this. And in his own Charlie-like way, he was giving his… blessing?

"I'll… ah… I've gotta get back to work but call me, Bella. I don't know the number here…"

"I'll have to… talk to Edward about…"

"I know," he said quickly, slowly backing towards the cruiser behind him. "Just call me when you've got it all figured out."

I nodded, still only able to stand in the doorway as he quickly scrambled into the car and backed out, flashing the lights at me before taking off down the road.

I turned back to the open doorway, staring straight ahead into the dining room as I swallowed hard and cautiously stepped one foot into the living room, pushing the conversation I just had with my father out of my mind completely. I closed my eyes tightly as I stepped all the way in, groping for the door handle and snatching the keys out of the lock before slamming it shut.

I instantly smelled _him_ and I couldn't even attempt to stop the flow of tears that immediately started rolling down my cheeks. And the memories, the feelings that came with them – the way his arms fit perfectly around my waist, the way he kissed me, the first time I kissed him, the way I felt every time he told me that he loved me, our first time on the stairs – all of them assaulted me and nearly brought me to my knees. I finally opened my eyes, whimpering pathetically as I threw the keys onto the table and dragged myself to the blanket in the middle of the room.

I sat down on the corner of it, tears rolling down my cheeks as I grabbed the edges and pulled it over my head, rose petals scattering everywhere. I curled into a ball and leaned over, thankfully falling against a pillow and finally letting the sobs and ache and pain flow through my lips without abandon.

To hell with moving shit in or finally unpacking my clothes from the duffel bag right now. I had a bleeding heart to cry out.

About an hour later – or at least it felt like an hour later when my throat was raw and dry and my head was pounding so hard that I wished it would just explode and get it over with – the front door opened.

I probably should've locked the damn thing. But I really didn't care. If they were fans of Edward that had found out where he lived and wanted pictures of my misery to laugh at for years to come, well, they were more than welcome to them. And if it just so happened to be an ax murderer, well… that'd just be really bad.

I barely looked up, my watery eyes making out two figures with plastic Price Chopper bags in their hands.

"Oh, honey," one of them cooed and I immediately recognized Angela's sympathetic voice.

My tense shoulders relaxed, only causing more tears to fall from my eyes as I buried my face into the blanket again. I heard rustling, which only reminded me of yesterday when Edward was setting up this whole display in the living room and caused more sobs to echo through the room before I felt someone lying down behind me, their arms firmly around my waist as they rested their head on my back. I heard footsteps retreating into the dining room and a few minutes later, I heard their footsteps coming back into the room. Rose was lying down in front of me in a few seconds, one arm placed on top of Angela's as she scooted in closer and up a little higher to rest her chin on the top of my head.

They stayed that way with me – only moving a little bit when I assumed that their limbs had gone numb – until I heard the phone ring. And then, for as weak as I had felt all damn day, I was the first one up and running to the dining room before either of them could move. I snatched the phone off the receiver and cleared my throat, wiping my face before I pressed the little green button and put the phone to my ear.

"Hello?"

My voice sounded hoarse and slightly weak, but that was as good as it was going to get. I'd stopped crying and dehydrating myself a few minutes ago, merely lying on the floor and staring at Rose's neck in silence.

We hadn't spoken since they'd come in and the volume of my voice scared me for a second when I realized how truly quiet the house was.

"Bella," he breathed, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

"Yeah," I bit my bottom lip and smiled back, turning on my heel and pacing the length of the dining room. "You're in Chicago?"

"Unfortunately," he confirmed, yawning. "But I'm here."

"How was the flight?"

I turned when I heard footsteps behind me and saw Rose, wiggling her fingers at me as she passed by and walked into the kitchen. Angela followed after her, reaching over to squeeze my arm before she headed up the stairs and into the bathroom.

"Long, boring… the woman sitting next to me kept staring at me and licking her lips. I was rather scared of that."

I laughed a little, turning back around and reaching up with my free hand to play with the ends of my hair.

"Maybe she wanted you."

"I think she was old enough to be my mother."

"You're a very attractive man, Edward. I'm sure lots of people want you."

I swallowed hard before shaking my head at myself and chewing on my bottom lip again.

"Well, I'm taken and I plan on being that way for the rest of my life so really, there's no hope in hell for any of them."

I laughed, downright fucking giddy at his words and plopped into one of the dining room table chairs.

"Thank you for calling Charlie, by the way," I said softly, my fingertip idly making patterns on the table top.

"You're welcome. Most terrifying experience of my life, mind you."

"Why's that?"

"He was pretty positive that something had happened to you since I was calling him at work. Starting ranting and raving that if I'd hurt you, he'd shoot me without thinking twice." He laughed nervously and cleared his throat. "Two rows were looking over their seats at me because they heard him."

"Oh, no."

"It's okay!" he said quickly. "He was just protecting you."

I grunted, reaching up with my free hand and fisting my hand in my hair as I squinted at the table top. I was going to kill him.

"Yeah, I guess," I grumbled.

I heard a muffled voice in the background on his end of the phone and I sat up straight, immediately recognizing it for what it was. They were announcing a flight and I clearly heard _Seattle_ being said.

My throat immediately constricted and I felt the tears in my eyes again, the hand in my hair falling and landing with a loud, hollow _plop_ on the table.

Another goodbye.

"Bella," his voice sounded strangled and I let out the breath I hadn't realized that I'd been holding. "Love, I have to go."

"Okay," I whispered, shaking my head once before clearing my throat. "Call me when you land in Seattle, all right?"

"First thing," he said quickly.

"I love you," I said, my voice strained as my eyes clouded over again while I stared straight ahead at the wall in front of me.

"I love you too and I'll talk to you soon."

"Yeah."

"I'm not saying…"

"Don't."

"Okay."

"Okay."

I held on until I heard silence and then lowered the phone, pressing the red button on the phone before slamming it down on the table.

"Here," Rose said, quickly placing a glass of water and two Advil tablets on the table in front of me.

"What are you; psychic?" I asked, my voice shaking as I reached out and snatched up the little green pills.

"No," she said softly, sitting down in the chair next to me. "I've just been there."

I nodded, quickly throwing my head back and popping the pills in my mouth before I grabbed the glass of water and swallowed more than half of it down in one sitting. Angela had walked back down the stairs while I was chugging my water and was sitting on my other side, her hands clasped together on the table as they both watched me.

Slapping the glass back on the table, I breathed heavily and wrapped my fingers tightly around it, keeping my eyes focused on the empty chair in front of me.

"Shouldn't you guys be at work?"

"You're way more important than work, Bella," Angela said quietly, reaching over and placing one of her hands on my arm. "We knew this day was going to be hard and we knew that you'd need us."

I swallowed the emotion welling up in my throat again and nodded my thanks, pressing my lips together and forcing deep breaths in through my nose.

"We brought ice cream," Rose offered, clearing her throat. "If you're going to be all upset and depressed, ice cream is definitely something that you need."

"Mint Marcy from Stewart's?" I asked hopefully, raising an eyebrow at her.

"As if we'd get you something else," she scoffed, rolling her eyes at me before she got up and walked back into the kitchen.

I managed a smirk and moved my arm from Angela's hand before grabbing hers with my own and squeezing it. She squeezed back, smiling sympathetically at me.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Not now," I answered weakly, trying to smile over at her.

She nodded, smiling back at me and squeezing my hand again.

"When you're ready."

"At least tell us how he is in bed!" Rosalie shouted from the kitchen. "I've been fucking _dying_ to know."

"Rose!" Angela scolded, glaring in the direction of the kitchen. "Do you really think—?"

She went on and all I could do was rest my forehead on the table and _laugh_, my hand still clutching Angela's and tears still in my eyes and my heart still pretty fucking torn apart.

Only Rosalie Hale would think to ask something like that after the kind of day we all knew that I'd had. And that was why she was my best fucking friend.

~*~

***December 23***

I stood in the middle of the small parking lot, looking up at the bookstore with my hands shoved in my jacket pockets and my lips twisted to the sides.

Jessica's little red Chevy Cobalt was in the lot, my truck parked next to hers, flaunting itself proudly. I would've been surprised that she was even here this early, but figured that there must be some extremely juicy gossip concerning my love life that she felt she needed to share with me first thing. The ticket to Edward's premiere was in my purse, tucked safely in my checkbook so that it didn't get ruined.

Angela and Rose had had to stop me from ripping it to shreds after one too many very large glasses of margaritas that they'd whipped up a few hours after I'd finished off the entire carton of the ice cream they'd bought for me.

It was what Rose called the _cure for heartbreak_. It hadn't tasted so well when it came back up around five this morning, but it had worked for all intents and purposes the night before.

And when Edward had called me a few hours into the drinking portion of the day to tell me that he was safely in Seattle, I managed to tell him between sobs and giggles that I was really drunk, needed him back and refused to ever get my nether regions waxed just because Rosalie told me that sex would be better without the hair in the way. I think he'd tried to keep up with me and said something along the lines of needing me back as well and that he didn't really give a damn about whether or not that part of me was waxed, as long as I was there.

That was about the time I _really_ started sobbing, telling him that I missed him and loved him over and over before Angela snatched the phone away from me and apologized to him about Rosalie's insistence of buying alcohol for me.

I remembered saying that I loved him again, refused to say the word _goodbye_ and had promptly passed out until my stomach woke me up to tell me how much it _did not_ like the ice cream and alcohol combination.

I'd spent the rest of the morning with my head in the toilet, flipping Rose off each time she walked in to check on me while realizing that I'd have to go to work to face Jessica. I had a feeling that turning her into a banana today just wasn't going to cut it.

And staring up at my place of business a few short hours after that incident with a headache that I'd barely managed to tame, I'd finally come to a realization.

I _loved_ this place. I loved helping customers and getting new shipments of books; I loved the smell of them as I walked in every morning and I loved knowing that I'd helped in keeping this place running all these years. I loved it when I saw a little child excited about a book that they'd found. I loved seeing people sitting in the comfortable arm chairs and reading passages for hours on end. I _loved_ being here.

And the only reason that I hated coming here every day was because of the bottle blonde I'd interviewed and stupidly believed would be a good addition to this place over two years ago.

I vowed, then and there, that my interview process would be much more extensive the next time around.

I refused to let Jessica continue to ruin something that I loved so much. And today – today, when my heart was still aching and I was still trying to adjust to the fact that Edward wouldn't be there when I got home – I had no tolerance for the comments I knew she'd start flinging at me as soon as I walked in the door.

I couldn't control Edward leaving. I could, however, control my livelihood being turned into something it hadn't been since she'd started working here.

And today was the day that I was going to take control of my life and of my business. I'd lost enough of myself in the past day and I fucking refused to lose any more of it.

Sucking in a deep breath, I walked up the path to the front door and pushed it open to find Jessica at the front counter with a smug, self satisfied smirk on her face. Squaring my shoulders, I set my purse down as I took off my coat and hung it up. Fishing around in my purse as I picked it up, I pulled out the ticket and walked up the counter, slapping it down on the desk.

"You looked really good yesterday, Bella," she chirped, smiling sarcastically at me as she turned the computer screen to face me.

Just as Charlie had predicted, there I was at the airport with my head in my hands and tears running down my cheeks. I bit the inside of my cheek, raising an eyebrow at her as she scrolled down a little more to show me a picture of Edward and I together before he'd left.

I bit my tongue in an attempt to keep the tears that had been almost non-stop since yesterday morning at bay. That picture and the look on Edward's face as he stared down at me was enough to torture me for the next few weeks.

"How has business been this past week, Jess?" I asked, my voice sickly sweet as I stood up straight, squared my shoulders again and crossed my arms over my chest.

Plenty of time for all of that later. I had a pretty damn big issue to deal with right now.

She shrugged, rolling her eyes and waving me off.

"I don't know."

"Well maybe you would if you'd paid a little more attention to everything. Did you do any of the paperwork while I was away?"

She scoffed, turning the screen back to face her and placing her hand on the mouse again.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because that's what I pay you for. That's why you have this damn ticket," I said, my voice low as I disentangled my arms and shoved it over to her.

She snatched it away from me, her face lighting up as she wiggled happily in her chair.

"I have to call Amanda! She'll never believe this!" she squealed as she picked up the phone.

I was quick to reach over and place my finger on the tab, effectively disrupting her almost phone call and raising an eyebrow at her again as she scowled at me and tried brushing my hand off.

"You're fired," I said, my voice low and impressively grave. "Give me your key and get out."

Her mouth dropped open and she stared at me, the ticket in one hand and the phone in the other.

"What?" she finally asked.

"You're fired," I said again, slowly.

Her face began to turn red and I was quick to move my hand as she slammed the phone back down and jerked up out of her chair to get nose-to-nose with me.

"You can't _do_ that."

"I just did."

Her breaths began coming in heaving pants as she continued to stare at me, her chest rising and falling as her free hand bunched into a fist. I didn't move my eyes from hers, finding some kind of perverse enjoyment in all of this. It had always been _me_ that had gotten worked up and pissed off at everything Jessica did. It was a very nice change to finally be able to get underneath _her_ skin.

"You'll regret this," she snarled. "My father will _own_ this place and you will have _shit_."

"We'll see," I said simply, shrugging my shoulders and placing my purse on the counter before crossing my arms over my chest again. "Now, if you'd please gather your things and give me the key, I'd really appreciate it if you left."

"You will _regret_ this," she seethed again as she slammed her fist on the counter and continued to glare at me.

"I'll take my chances." I turned slightly and nodded towards the door. "If you don't mind…"

She screamed and stomped her foot but started to gather everything she had resting on the desk. Her picture frames, her stupid little knick knacks that only she thought were cute and everything else that she possibly could've hidden there to stuff them into her purse. She angrily wrenched the key to the front door off of her key ring and slapped it on the counter. I watched for the entire fifteen minutes it took her to accomplish all of this, carefully making sure that what she put into her bag was actually _hers_ before she finally stalked over to the coat rack and snatched her jacket off of it. She jammed her arms into the sleeves, snarling out a high-pitched scream in my direction and then stormed out, the door blissfully slamming behind her.

I waited to hear her car start up and then leave before I did a little dance of my own, mentally patting myself on the back as I skipped around to the other side of the counter and plopped down into the chair Jessica had vacated for the last time. Smiling and humming to myself, I picked up the receiver and dialed in the number to Angela's studio.

"Twilight Studios, Angela speaking, how can I help you?" her chipper voice came through the phone and I grinned.

"I did it!" I exclaimed, pumping one fist into the air.

"Bella? Did what?"

"I fired her, Ang! She's gone!"

"You fired Jessica?" she asked, her voice hopeful for one minute and then immediately taken over by a yawn. "That's great."

I winced slightly and laughed nervously.

"Sorry about keeping you up last night…"

"Shut up," she said easily through another yawn. "You needed it."

"Yeah well… you didn't need to deal with all of that."

"You would've done the same for me."

"True."

"So let's go out tonight and celebrate or something. The bitch is gone and you can take back your business."

I immediately perked up again, sitting up straight in the chair and anxiously tapping my fingernails on the counter even as my stomach lurched at the thought of more alcohol.

"I don't think I can handle any more drinks."

"And I don't think I can handle watching you drink anything else. What about just dinner?"

"Yeah, okay," I said brightly, nodding and briefly thinking that I needed to get some sort of radio installed in this place. "I'll just go home and ask—"

My face fell and the silence on the other end of the phone was deafening as we both quickly realized what I was about to say. Laughing nervously, I slumped back into the chair and dug my toe into the carpet, biting my bottom lip as tears immediately started to fill my eyes.

I couldn't ask Edward if he wanted to go to dinner with us if he wasn't there. He couldn't actually come out to dinner with us if he wasn't even in the same state with us anymore.

I knew he wasn't there. I'd slept on the damn floor in the living room last night, tangled up in the blue blanket; I was very much aware that he wasn't anywhere in that house but it didn't stop my brain from thinking that he was. It didn't stop the hope that had surged through me for a brief moment, thinking that I could go home and see him waiting for me on the couch.

I knew this wasn't going to be easy. I'd known that since day one and it was something that I was just going to have to fucking deal with already. I _could_ do this. I could do this for him and I could do this for us because we both deserved this.

"Maybe one drink wouldn't be so bad," Angela finally said quietly.

"Yeah," I whispered, sniffling slightly and leaning forward on the counter to rub at my eyes with my free hand. "Or five."

"That works, too. I'll call Rose and we'll figure something out, okay? We'll take care of everything, Bella."

Will you take care of my broken heart, too? Because that was in some dire need of fixing right at the moment.

"Call me back," I managed, clearing my throat and sitting back when I heard the door open to signify a customer walking in.

"Will do. Bye, Bella."

"See you later."

I quickly wiped my eyes again as I set the phone in its cradle, standing up and moving my purse from the counter to smile at the young girl aimlessly walking around the front room.

The pain wasn't going to go away anytime soon, but maybe I could bury it underneath the massive amount of work I had ahead of me for at least a few hours.

At least until I had to go home.

~*~

***December 24***

"For someone who doesn't have much furniture," Ben huffed as he helped me drag my lonely end table across the street, "you sure as hell have a lot of _heavy_ shit."

"Sorry," I huffed, shaking my hair out of my face as we awkwardly walked up Edward's porch steps.

It was four-fifty on Christmas Eve and I'd enlisted the help of my friend and her husband to finally move my shit into my new place of residence.

Well, really, Angela had insisted that they help me out when I told her of my plans after closing the store for the Christmas holiday. I didn't have to be at Charlie's house until mid-morning tomorrow and to keep myself from losing what little bit of mind I had left, had stupidly informed Angela that I would be moving everything until Edward called that night.

She'd refused to leave me alone on Christmas Eve and I hadn't been entirely sure of the whole _tree thing_ that she'd mentioned until they pulled up outside of the cabin with a big ass Evergreen tied to the top of their car. I'd already told them that while I appreciated the sentiment, Ben was going to be the one to take it down as soon as the holidays were over. He'd grumbled at his wife, glared at me and then accepted his fate with a sigh before untying the tree and waiting for Angela to help him with it.

And _then_ Angela had even had the foresight to bring over an entire box of Christmas ornaments for me to use. While I'd had my own tree for the past few years with Jake, all of the ornaments had been his. And they were still his because he'd taken those, too.

So I let them set up the tree and had done my best to smile as brightly as possible each time she whipped her camera out of her back pocket in an effort to _"commemorate the experience"_ or some such shit while I grudgingly helped them decorate the damn thing. It made her happy and I wasn't constantly thinking about the voice that would be on the other end of the telephone in a few very long hours.

We'd come up with a system to our phone calls. He called me at work when he woke up, I called him when I got out of work and then he called again around ten-thirty so that we could say goodnight to each other. Was it a bit much? Absolutely. Was I going to do anything to change it? Fuck no.

"Where do you want this?" he grunted as we made it into the house.

"Dining room," I panted, grunting as I attempted to push it up higher in my arms. "Back left corner."

"Fuck, Bella," he grumbled as we shuffled our way through the now overly clean living room. "I sure as hell hope that you never move again or at least have the courtesy to let me call immunity to it when you do."

I laughed breathlessly, nodding as we passed by the stairs – and I was getting a hell of a lot better about not tearing up every time I saw them or had to use them – and inched around the dining table to get to the corner. We shuffled our feet a bit more until he was pressed up against the wall before we both slid the end table down to the floor and he moved.

"Thanks Ben," I smiled, gripping the edges tightly and pushing it right up against the wall.

"You're welcome. Hey, you got any beer here?"

I nodded and motioned with my head to the kitchen as I grabbed the lamp I'd already brought over here from the table and dusted off the bottom of it.

"Help yourself."

I put entirely too much effort into getting the lamp to look as though it fit into this house in the first place and gave up after a few minutes. Nothing that I was bringing into this house fit; nothing matched and that drove me insane. And all the little pieces of furniture that I did still have were ridiculously useless because Edward already had everything either of us could ever possibly need.

What in the hell would we need another television for? Or an old recliner that would never fit into the house no matter how many times I rearranged the living room?

I'd be better off holding a damn garage sale and selling everything that I didn't need anymore.

And I had no idea what the hell to do with my own house. Would it be too presumptuous of me to sell it? I mean, he wanted me to move in, sure, but he'd never said anything about me getting rid of my house.

"Why didn't you go?"

I jumped about five feet in the air, thankful the lamp was out of my hands as I turned to face Ben leaning against the doorjamb of the kitchen, one hand in the pocket of his jeans and the other clutching onto a Heineken bottle.

"Go where?" I asked as I pressed a hand against my racing heart and swallowed hard.

"With Edward," he stated, shrugging easily and lifting the bottle to his lips.

I shook my head, squeezing my eyes together tightly for a few moments before opening them to face him again.

"I have my bookstore; you guys and Charlie are here… I can't just drop everything and leave with him. My life is _here_."

He pursed his lips slightly and nodded, looking around the dining room as if it were the first time he'd ever been in here.

"You know, Bella," he started, pushing off the doorjamb and walking over to me, "when Ang said that we were coming over to meet Edward that first night, I didn't really know what to think. I'd never paid much attention to him before because Ang had never really mentioned him and I'm not a screaming twelve-year old girl." I snorted at that and he smirked, handing me his bottle of beer before sitting down at the table. "But when she told me that you were actually dating him, it was like I had this… sudden _urge_ to… protect you?" He questioned himself, tilting his head to the side and taking the bottle when I offered it back to him. "You're one of Ang's best friends, which makes you one of mine as well so I guess it was just instinct on some level. So when I walked in here that night, I had every intention of doing my best to intimidate him." I laughed loudly at that, sitting down at the table as well and trying to imagine Ben trying to intimidate _anyone_. "But one look at him and I knew that I wouldn't have to. That man is very much in love with you, Bella and if you feel even an ounce of what I saw on his face that night, the last people you need to be thinking about are us."

I bit my bottom lip, my chin starting to tremble as I looked down at the table top and clasped my hands together tightly. I looked up when one of Ben's hands covered both of mine and tried to offer him a shaky smile.

"You need to go where your heart is," he said softly. "And if it's in California, then that's where you need to be. We'll miss you, but we understand."

"My store," I managed, sucking in a deep breath and blinking rapidly in an attempt to get rid of the tears.

I'd just taken control over everything again. I wasn't sure I was ready to hand it over to someone else so soon no matter what my heart was telling me to do.

"You can find someone else; hire someone else that you can really trust to run it while you're away. We'll all take turns checking in to make sure that everything's still running all right if that's what needs to be done. Bella, we just want you to be happy."

I let out a choked sob before standing up and leaning over to wrap my arms tightly around his neck. He grabbed me around the waist, quickly pulling me into his lap and running his hands down my hair, shushing me and rocking back and forth as I sobbed into his chest.

"I miss him," I wailed.

"I know you do," he whispered, resting his cheek on the top of my head. "And I'm pretty confident in saying that he misses you, too."

That only managed to hurt a little more and made the sobs pour from my mouth a little louder as I curled up on his lap. Angela walked in at some point and I felt her hand on my back, rubbing soothing circles there.

Christ, I was a mess. And it had only been two days since he'd left. How was I going to handle another two months without him?

~*~

***Christmas***

Gathering the apple pie I'd baked at the ass crack of dawn that morning and the bag of Christmas gifts I'd bought and wrapped at the very beginning of the month from the passenger side of the truck, I moved out of the way and closed the door with my hip before walking up the familiar path to Charlie and Sue's house.

I hadn't been able to sleep. As much as my body had craved it after I'd cried for what felt like hours into Ben's chest, as soon as Edward had called to say goodnight and I'd gone up to bed, I'd been wide awake. I'd stared at the ceiling and then at our picture on the wall, trying to lose myself in the way I'd felt the day it was taken. That worked for about two hours before I was awake again. So I'd attempted to work the damn alarm clock's radio, hoping that I'd be able to find some type of music to lull me to sleep again. I'd landed another hour and a half of sleep before I was awake and by then, when the clock told me that it was barely five in the morning, I'd gotten up and had decided to make a pie.

It kept my hands busy and my mind away from the fact that I was alone on Christmas morning.

Edward had called at ten-thirty, telling me about how Emmett and Alice were like little children and demanded that he be up early so that they could exchange and open gifts before more of their family members arrived. He'd sounded exhausted, irritated and grouchy and more than anything, I'd wanted to be with him. I'd heard Alice's high pitched squeal on the other end of the phone as he walked into another room and laughed when the two of them started arguing over… everything. Not that I could actually make out more than Edward saying, _"Alice, shut up already!"_ And then another deep, booming voice joined hers and I laughed again when Edward hissed at him to shut up as well.

Eventually his siblings won out and he made me promise that I'd call him as soon as I got home from Charlie's that night. I said I would and we both hung up, still avoiding the word _goodbye_ and I went back to my pie with a heavy, aching heart.

Now it was barely past noon and I was using my elbow to push the doorbell in when I realized that my full hands were not going to be able to balance everything and open the door at the same time.

I heard footsteps pounding on the other side of the door and stood up straight, plastering the most meaningful smile on my face that I could and waited for the door to open. Seth stood in front of me, a grin on his face and his eyes lit up as he bounced up and down on his heels.

"Bella!" he exclaimed, quickly taking the pie from me before pulling me into him with his free arm and hugging me tightly.

I laughed and hugged him back, patting his back with my now free hand and letting him sway us from side to side.

"Hey, kid! How's it going?"

"I'm so glad to see you," he breathed, pulling me into the house and not letting me go. "Mom and Charlie have been conveniently finding themselves under the mistletoe and really," he made a face at me as he pulled away and closed the door behind me, "I can't take much more of that."

I laughed half-heartedly and set the bag of presents down next to my feet as I shed my coat and hung it up on the pegs beside me.

"Your sister here yet?"

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, waving a hand at me and waiting for me to grab the presents before walking with me into the open living room. I'd always adored this house with its high ceilings and large windows overlooking the equally as large backyard. He'd bought it when my mother had gotten remarried, saying that it was his own little wedding gift to himself. He still loved my mother on some level; he was just glad that he wasn't the one married to her anymore.

The living room and kitchen took up the bottom half of the two story house with a small room off to the side for the dining room, the winding staircase nestled against the deep blue wall on the very left side of the room and the spacious kitchen separated only by the breakfast bar directly opposite of that. Upstairs were the bedrooms, two large bathrooms and an office for Sue when she did whatever it was that she claims to do during the day. I was pretty sure that not even Charlie was aware of what his wife did when he wasn't home and when we asked her about it, she gave us some explanation that sounded close to her speaking in Greek.

"She's waiting for her precious boy toy before she comes over here."

"Have you met him?"

"Nope," he stated brightly, popping the _p_. "Maybe he's just too damn embarrassed to be seen out in public with her."

I snorted as I stashed the bag underneath the massive tree in the corner of the living room and walked with him toward the kitchen, immediately greeted by Sue. She had a frilly apron tied around her waist, her dark brown hair twisted up into an elegant bun on the back of her head and she was barefoot as she danced from side to side to music that had to be in her head.

"Bella!" she squealed, walking over to me and quickly wrapping her arms around my neck. "It's so nice to see you!"

"You too, Sue. Smells great in here," I grinned, kissing her cheek and moving away from her to sit at the breakfast bar.

"You're just glad that you're not the one cooking this year." She waved a finger at me and winked. "Your father will be right down. He had to dig out that tie your grandmother gave him for Christmas a few years ago."

I flinched at the mention of the Frosty the Snowman tie that lit up and sang whenever he moved. It had amused me for about ten minutes before it became horribly annoying and I'd wished a fiery, torturous death to it. There were only so many times a person could hear the Frosty theme song without going completely insane.

Seth sat down on the stool next to me, eyeing the large bowl of stuffing sitting just below us and licking his lips. I laughed and kicked his leg, shaking my head as he jumped and grinned over at me.

"So how's your new man, Bella?" Sue asked innocently as she rounded the counter and began to chop up a celery stalk.

My stomach twisted but I somehow managed to keep the smile on my face as I nervously tangled one hand in my hair.

"He's good," I nodded, clearing my throat.

"The actor!" Seth exclaimed, pointing at me. "Yes! I saw some pictures of you two out at a club or something." He wrinkled his nose at me. "Not something I ever wanted to see my stepsister doing."

I laughed and pushed on his shoulder, rolling my eyes as he dramatically gripped onto the edge of the counter and leaned away from me.

"Well I think it's sweet," Sue said, smiling over at me. "As long as he's good to you."

I smiled and nodded, tugging on the ends of my hair. "He's very good."

"Okay, that's just… ew," Seth grumbled, gently placing his hand on my head and pushing slightly. "Enough."

"Shut up," I laughed, slapping at his arm until he moved it and slung it around my shoulders.

"What time is everyone coming over, ma?" he asked, tousling my hair before letting me go.

I narrowed my eyes at him as I reached up to smooth my hair back into submission, huffing loudly and slapping at his shoulder.

"They'll all be here around two. Dinner will be done around three," she informed us, nodding decidedly as she sprinkled the small celery bits into the stuffing.

"Bella!"

I turned around on the stool to find that Charlie was walking down the stairs with the God-forsaken tie held out at his side even as it sang and lit up. I stood up and met him halfway, hugging him tightly and kissing his cheek loudly.

"Merry Christmas, dad."

He grumbled something, his face beet red as I backed away from him. I laughed and let him hook an arm around my shoulders, squeezing me tightly as we walked back to the breakfast bar I'd abandoned. He quickly left my side when Sue came into view and I smiled softly as he rounded the counter and quickly kissed her cheek, his arms winding around her waist.

"You see?" Seth groaned, pointing accusingly at them. "This is only _half_ of what they've been doing all day."

I laughed and rolled my eyes at him, hooking my arm around his and standing up.

"Come on. Help me sort the gifts."

His eyes lit up and I shook my head, snorting as he dragged me into the living room. We both stopped in the middle when we heard the front door slam and I think I growled when I heard Leah call out to everything that _they_ were here.

Great. As if Leah wasn't bad enough on her own, now she had a _someone_ to torture me with. Oh, I was _so_ looking forward to seeing this day end.

Seth sighed heavily and I smirked, thankful that I had someone on my side.

"Great," he muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes as he walked over to the tree and sat on the floor. "It's been really peaceful without having to hear her loud mouth every damn day."

I snorted again, two steps away from joining him on the floor when I heard a deep rumble of familiar laughter. I froze, my head snapping in the direction of the doorway and my eyes narrowed as I waited for them to appear in the hallway.

"You okay, Bella?"

I nodded, my eyes still trained on the opening of the hallway as I tapped my toes on the floor.

It took them about five minutes more than necessary but when they finally did show up, my eyes narrowed into tiny slits when I recognized the guy standing next to Leah. His wide hands were on her waist as he walked in, a smug smile on both of their faces as their eyes immediately landed on me upon their entrance.

We stared at each other for a few silent, tense moments before I felt my lips starting to curve into a smile. My eyes returned to their normal size and a bubble of laughter escaped my lips as I stared directly into Jake's brown eyes.

They were looking at me as if they were expecting some epic, monumental reaction from me. Like they were just waiting for me to burst into a mess of tears and wails and sobs so that they could either hold it against me or laugh at my expense.

Which was really fucking stupid on their parts to begin with. This was _my_ father's house. Just because Sue had moved in here once they'd gotten married did not by any means signify that they had seniority over anything. I was pretty fucking positive that Charlie would take my side in all of this… if they'd gotten the reaction they seemed to be hoping for, anyway.

And on top of that, I really didn't _care_. They were both free to date whomever they wanted and if they wanted to torture each other, well, they had my blessing.

I had Edward and I didn't care anything about what Jake did or who he decided to do it with.

"Oh, this is good," I laughed, pointing at him. "This is _really_ good."

"Problem?" Leah asked, raising an eyebrow at me and leaning back into Jake.

I just shook my head, little bouts of laughter still crawling up my throat and escaping through my lips against my better judgment.

"Not at all, Leah. In fact, I'm very happy for the both of you," I said brightly, hooking my thumbs into my jeans pockets and rocking back and forth on my heels. "I can't think of any two people that deserve to be together more than the two of you do."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jake grumbled, eyeing me cautiously.

"Just my opinion," I laughed, easily shrugging my shoulders. "I'm sure you two have tons in common."

"What the hell is your problem?" Leah hissed.

At this, I doubled over in laughter, leaning forward and grabbing onto my knees for support.

Maybe I was cracking up and officially losing my mind, but I found this entire situation beyond hysterical. My stepsister seemed to get exactly what she'd always wanted for Christmas and my ex-boyfriend was more than welcome to date the conniving twit that had left no questions about wanting him right from the start. They'd come in here, prepared for battle and no doubt thinking that I'd ream them both up one side and down the other and all I could think about was how pretty fucking predictable both of them were.

Jake had wrongfully bitched at me for jumping into a relationship the minute he dumped me and now, not even a month later, he walks into my father's house with my stepsister on his arm.

This was just fucking… amazing. Best damn Christmas ever. Maybe we'd be able to make it onto Jerry Springer for shit like this.

"I don't," I managed between giggles, standing up straight before bending back down upon seeing them together again. "I don't have a problem."

"What the hell is so damn funny?" she demanded, angrily fisting her hands on her hips and glaring at me.

That only made it worse and before I realized it, I had fallen to my knees on the floor, my arms wrapped around my waist as tears escaped my eyes and streamed down my cheeks.

"Bella, what is so damn funny?" Charlie grumbled, ambling into the living room and stopping dead as he saw Jake standing with Leah.

I just pointed at them, still laughing and was finally forced to lean against the bottom of the sofa behind me so that I could attempt to breathe normally again.

"Something you'd like to tell us, Jacob?" Charlie asked and even through my laughter I could hear the warning and menace in his tone.

Which only made me laugh harder; to the point where I wasn't making any sounds anymore but my entire body was shaking with what would've been loud peals of more laughter.

"At least," I started, raising a hand up before letting it fall to the floor as I breathed out more laughter, "at least you kept it all in the family, Jake!"

"What is…? Oh, Leah," Sue sighed, shaking her head and slapping her forehead with her fingers as she walked up behind Charlie.

I looked over at Seth – who was for once trying to be the calm one throughout all of this – to see that he had his lips pressed tightly together, his eyes were bugged out and he was swallowing rapidly. When he looked over at me, loud guffaws immediately left his mouth as he leaned forward and rested his forehead on the carpet, his shoulders shaking as he laughed. I dropped my head back onto the couch cushion and continued laughing, holding my stomach.

Finally, twenty minutes later, my grandmother showed up and Seth forced me upstairs and into the bathroom, both of us still laughing and gasping for air as we cleaned our faces and did our best to calm down so that we could continue the ritual of making fun of our relatives under our breath.

For some reason, I was thinking that wouldn't really be necessary this year. We had more than enough ammunition to amuse us for the rest of time with Leah and Jake scowling and looking like someone had just taken away their favorite toys.

And by the time dinner was over, I'd spent more time with Seth in the bathroom calming myself down than I did downstairs with my family. Opening gifts had been the hardest part because as soon as I tried getting up when I caught a glimpse of Jake shifting uneasily as he sat next to my father on the couch, one of my relatives – or Sue's – would openly glare at me in a way that made me terrified to move ever again. I'd spent a lot of time carefully opening packages and then as casually as possible hiding my face behind the paper when I couldn't stand it anymore.

It had been a very long day and at a quarter to nine, when I was shrugging into my coat and getting ready to leave, I realized that I was exhausted. Walking back into the living room, I said a _good night_ and a _Merry Christmas_ to all of my remaining relatives, promising my father a phone call within the next few days, promising Seth that we'd have lunch together one day soon and starting back towards the front door. One of my hands was on the doorknob and the other reaching to grab the shopping bag full of gifts that I'd received when I heard footsteps behind me and I turned to see Jake walking up.

I raised an eyebrow at him as he fidgeted with his hands, casting worried glances over his shoulder as he came to a stop in front of me.

"Something to say?" I finally asked, shaking my head.

I had a phone call to get home to and he was simply wasting my time the same way that he'd wasted my time with our entire relationship.

"You're okay."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"I'm with Leah…"

I snorted, forced to hold in more laughter as I licked my lips and crossed my arms over my chest, shaking my head.

Did he really believe that I cared anymore? Did he really think that I still held on to some feelings for him when he'd done everything he did to me?

"And I'm with Edward."

His eyes narrowed and I pursed my lips, looking over his shoulder to see that Leah had stationed herself at the beginning of the hallway, her arms over her chest and her eyes glaring back at me.

"Saw those pictures of you," he sneered, his posture immediately becoming defensive as he squared his broad shoulders and he crossed _his_ arms over his chest as well.

"You and half the fucking world," I said quietly, tilting my head to the side slightly. "We're done here. Merry Christmas, Jake."

With that, I dropped my arms, hoisted the shopping bag up against my hip and yanked open the door, chuckling and rolling my eyes at the whole damn day.

This had definitely been a Christmas that I'd never forget.

~*~

***December 31***

"Thank you for your time," I said weakly, smiling at the sixteenth person I'd had to interview today. "I'll call you and let you know my decision."

She popped her gum, tilted her head from side to side and smiled brightly at me as she bent to pick up her candy pink, patent leather purse, thanked me and literally skipped out of the store. I quickly threw her application in the trash before leaning forward and banging my head slightly against the top of the counter.

This was torture. There hadn't been a single person that I could even fathom leaving the bookstore with while I was away in February. They were mostly young girls looking for a part time after school job and the ones that weren't scared the crap out of me. Older women set in their ways and refusing to even _try_ listening to how I ran my own bookstore and demanded that I tidy up around here was _not_ someone I wanted working for me. I'd chase all my damn customers away.

And I really couldn't afford to do that. I'd officially started saving money to buy the plane ticket I'd need in February and while I'd have enough to live on even without the extra money I was putting aside, I still had a mortgage on a house I didn't know what to do with to pay and I did need to eat at least twice a day.

I'd officially moved all of my things into Edward's place the day after I'd gotten home from Christmas at Charlie's. Well, not everything, but the things that I really needed were there. Angela had suggested putting some of my bigger things – such as the television and recliner – in the local _Penny Saver_ so that I could get rid of them but with my longer hours and all the extra paperwork that I still hadn't gotten done since my return piling up, I was lucky that I had a chance to talk to Edward every day.

And every day after I hung up with him, my heart hurt even more. I missed everything about him and living in his house without him wasn't the same by any means. It felt like I was dying a little more each day when he wasn't here. Something was _off_, something was missing from me and no matter how hard I'd tried to patch myself up temporarily, it wasn't working.

I needed him back. I needed him back in my life, at my side on a more permanent basis. I couldn't deal with this incredible ache every time I woke up from my dreams and realized that he wasn't there. I couldn't go through my day as if I were on autopilot. Rose and Angela were doing everything that they possibly could to keep me out of my funk – even taking things so far as dragging me to the mall the other night in a very sad, pathetic attempt to get me out of the house.

I'd only bought Edward's Christmas present and spent the rest of the night staring at the little gold bag that taunted me and let me know that he wouldn't be getting it until February. I should've gotten it sooner; he should've had it before he left. But I didn't have any spare time and I wasn't shopping with him for something that I planned on giving him one day. I could've sent it to him, but I wanted to be there when he opened it.

And then I'd driven in to work the next morning to discover that I had three nondescript vans of varying colors waiting for me with some long ass camera lenses in the parking lot. They'd snapped pictures of me in my truck as I drove up, as I got out, as I walked down the parking lot and towards the walk way to get to the front door. I'd stopped them there, though, claiming that if they wanted more pictures of me in my place of business, they had to come in and buy two hundred dollars worth of books.

They'd been quick to back off, but they were still right there as I left work at seven thirty that night. And they'd been back there the next morning when I pulled in. They'd been there ever since and I really began to wonder if they had homes or honestly believed that I was really _that_ interesting. For the most part, they were pretty nice and only spoke to me when they wanted me to look up. But they didn't harass any of the other customers and they weren't taking over my bookstore – just the parking lot – so I didn't have any _real_ complaints about any of it.

Rubbing my hands over my face as I sat back, I groaned and looked down at the clock on the computer. It was a quarter to four – I always closed early on the eves of the holidays – and I really didn't have the time to stay and finish the paperwork because Rosalie would probably kill me. She had plans for the night and I was, under no circumstances allowed to screw anything up for her.

Standing up, I left everything as it was, pulled the drawer from the cash register and locked the front door before walking up the stairs and shoving the drawer into the safe.

I'd count it on Friday morning when I reopened. I just didn't have the energy to deal with it right now.

I locked the doors, set the alarm I'd had installed upon Rosalie's insistence, stuffed the store keys into my purse as I made it outside and almost ran into one of the men with a camera.

"Have a nice New Year's Eve, guys," I sighed, digging around in my purse for my car keys as I side stepped around him.

"Any plans tonight, Bella?"

"Are you going anywhere?"

"Who will you kiss when the ball drops?"

"I'm going somewhere, but I guess you'll just have to find me on your own, won't you?" I laughed half-heartedly, shaking my head as I finally found my keys and wrapped my fingers around them. "And the only person I'll be kissing tonight is my reflection. Good night, guys."

It figures that I finally had someone worth being with for New Year's Eve and I wouldn't even be able to get my kiss in. Maybe I could call him and we could just talk through it. We'd have two different mini New Year's celebrations – mine three hours ahead of his.

I quickly unlocked my truck and slid in, backing out and taking off towards the house as quickly as possible. I looked in my rear view mirror, satisfied that they still hadn't followed me as of yet and relaxed minutely as I pulled onto my road.

I didn't even get online anymore. Not that I did much to begin with, but I definitely didn't even attempt to now. I was afraid of the pictures I'd find or the blurbs I'd read about how I wasn't good enough for their precious pre-conceived notions of who Edward really was. I did my best to avoid the supermarket at all costs, too. Only when I really needed something did I suck it up and go and studiously avoided looking at the tabloids at the check-out. I had no desire to torture myself with any of that.

I saw Rose's car parked in my old driveway as I drove closer and rolled my eyes, pulling into Edward's driveway and shutting off the car as I pushed open the door, grabbed my purse and jumped down from the cab. She really hadn't been kidding about getting me ready as soon as I got home from work. Why she didn't just park in this driveway was beyond me.

Shaking my head, I shook the house key apart from the rest and walked up the steps, not bothering to wait for Rosalie as I made it to the door and unlocked it. She'd be over here soon enough as it was. I took a deep breath, my breath hitching in my chest as his scent continued to linger and make me miss him that much more as I stepped in.

Throwing my purse onto the table next to the door, I closed the door and shed my coat, throwing it on the rocking chair and immediately walking into the dining room to grab the phone. Just as I flipped off my shoes and went to turn the phone on to call Edward as per usual, it rang and his cell number flashed on the small screen of the caller ID. A smile immediately tugged at my lips and I was quick to answer it, pressing it against my ear as I walked into the kitchen.

"Hey."

"Well hello there, lovely Bella!"

I stopped abruptly, staring at the stove as I heard Alice's voice on the other end of the line as opposed to the deep, musical voice that I'd come to adore even more in the past week than I ever had before.

Why the hell was she calling me? She'd never called me before. She'd never had to.

My throat clogged as I thought about the reasons; something had happened. Something was wrong with Edward and she was calling to tell me the horrible news that I'd just lost him.

My heart plummeted into my stomach.

"Alice? Is everything okay?" I asked quickly, my voice already hoarse.

"I need you to listen very carefully to me, all right?"

I let out a choked breath and quickly reached over to grab onto the counter to steady myself when I felt my knees starting to give out.

"Alice, what happened? What's going on? Is Edward all right?"

"Oh, he's fine," she said flippantly.

I crashed against the counter, my breath coming out in heaving pants as I leaned down to rest my forehead against the cool surface, letting the relief wash over me in waves.

"Alice, you can't _do that_ to me."

"What…? Oh! No! Sorry," she laughed.

I wanted to strangle her.

"What do you want, Alice?" I sighed, still concentrating on regulating my breathing. "I've got to get ready. Rose will be over here any minute."

"That's why you need to listen very carefully!" she exclaimed brightly.

"All right, I'm listening."

I stood up from the counter and walked into the dining room, flopping into one of the chairs at the table and tapping my fingernails against the surface.

"There's a plane ticket at the Albany airport with your name on it. It's leaving at six-fifteen and you _need_ to be on it."

"What are you talking about?" I sighed, reaching up and rubbing my forehead.

The woman gave me a headache. She may be small, but she had a knack for driving me over the edge.

"My brother is fucking miserable, Bella, and we're all tired of seeing him this way. He's only happy when he's talking about you or to you and to be perfectly honest, we can't stand it anymore."

"Mm," I mumbled, my heart starting to beat rapidly against my chest at the mere mention that he was in pain, too. I didn't like it. "What does that have to do with a plane ticket?"

"You're coming out here tonight to be with him for the New Year. At least, we're all hoping that you will. Please, Bella," she begged. "He needs you here."

I swallowed hard, biting my bottom lip as my eyes filled for what felt like the millionth time since the twenty-second.

"Alice…"

"Bella, _please_," she begged in a whisper. "We can't stand it. He's hurting so much and Christmas was absolutely _excruciating_. We can't go through another holiday with him like this."

I closed my eyes tightly, feeling the tears trail down my cheeks.

"He needs you," she said again.

And oh God, how I needed him, too. And he was always there for me when _I_ needed _him_. What kind of a girlfriend would I be if I didn't go to him when _he_ finally needed _me_?

I heard the front door open and opened my eyes to look over at Rose, seeing a rather large purple duffel bag that I'd never seen before in my life clutched in her hands.

"How am I gonna get there? I don't have…" I jumped up from the chair, running my hands through my hair, suddenly panicked. "I don't have anything packed."

"Yes, you do," Rosalie interrupted, holding up the duffel bag and smiling softly at me. "I've got everything but your toiletries packed in this bag, Bella."

I swallowed hard again and rushed over to her, crushing her into a tight hug.

"How did you…?"

"We exchanged numbers when she was here," she said, shrugging easily as she hugged me back. "And we both love the two of you so it made sense that we'd get this all set up because honestly, Bella, I can't stand seeing you so damn depressed anymore."

I looked up at her and squeezed her again, loudly and obnoxiously kissing her cheek.

"I love you, Rose."

"And I, you."

"Six-fifteen, Alice?" I asked, immediately switching into business mode.

"Yes!" she chirped and I could practically see her jumping up and down. "You'll get here around quarter till eleven and that'll be plenty of time for me to get you ready before you see him."

I couldn't even muster up the annoyance I wanted to feel at that. The only thing I could feel was the sudden elation making its way through my veins.

I was going to see _Edward_. I was going to be with him for the New Year. I'd get to see him and kiss him and hold him and be with him and I didn't give a damn if I'd only have tonight to do so. Being without him for this week made me realize how precious and sacred every second of my time with him had really been when he was here and I'd be damned if I'd waste it when I had the chance to have it back.

"All of the information is at the front desk for you, Bella."

"Thank you, Alice."

"Don't even mention it. Just get on that damn plane!"

"I will," I laughed, my voice watery as I backed away from Rose and ran up the stairs to the bathroom.

"We'll see you soon, Bella."

"Yes, yes, you will."

"Bye."

I hung up the phone without replying, sticking it in my jeans pocket as I gathered all of the things I'd need from the bathroom cabinet and ran back down the stairs. Rosalie already had the bag open and waiting for me as I ran over to her. I dropped everything inside, grabbed Edward's present from its spot on the table next to my keys and stuffed that inside as well before standing up and facing her.

She laughed at me and plucked the phone from my pocket before bending down to zip the bag and motioning with her chin towards my jacket.

"We've gotta hurry, Bella."

I grabbed it, throwing it over my shoulders before walking into the kitchen to shove the phone back on its base and quickly grabbing my purse and keys before bouncing excitedly on my heels. She laughed at me again, hefting the bag over her shoulder and turning to pull open the door. I locked it, pushing gently on her back as she walked onto the porch in an effort to make her move faster.

As we ran across the road and jumped into her car, I couldn't have controlled the grin that was taking up my face if I'd wanted to.

I was going to see Edward and everything in my life was suddenly back in balance.

~*~

**Before anyone asks…**

**No, Ben was not hitting on Bella. He was being a good friend and letting her cry it all out.**

**Thank you guys so much for reading and reviewing. I know I suck at replying, but I do read and appreciate every single one of them so thank you so much for all of them.**


	29. Chapter 29

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**I'm running out of ways to tell you guys how much I fucking adore and love all of you. Really. Every word you guys say during reviews makes me giddy and I seriously can't wait to wake up in the morning to read all of them.**

**And I'm anything but a morning person so really, that's something in my book.**

**Thanks to the lovely people on lion_lamb for recommending **_**Stay**_**, the beautiful girls on the Twilighted boards who amuse and keep me entertained at all hours of the night (that story may be in the works yet, girls!) and to, of course, my gorgeous friend Angie who I don't thank nearly enough for putting up with me. Every single one of you makes this ten times easier to write.**

**Oh, and a happy birthday to Sekhmet88! It's a little late, but I hope it still counts.**

~*~

***Edward***

***Christmas***

"Edward! Edward, you have to get up!"

I groaned and rolled over, grabbing my pillow and slapping it over my head as I curled into the fetal position in my bed.

It was way too fucking early for Alice.

"Edward!" she screeched, pounding on the door. "It's Christmas!"

I don't care, Alice.

"You have to get up! We're going to open gifts before everyone gets here!"

Well then, be my guest.

"Edward, _get up_!"

I'm quite comfortable, thank you, and you just interrupted the dream I'd been having about a certain brunette that I was pretty fucking in love with.

A certain brunette that wasn't even on the same coast as I was anymore.

I groaned and my heart twisted painfully as I pulled the pillow a little tighter over my head and curled my legs up to my chest even more.

I hadn't been this way the whole time I'd been home. I'd put an astronomical effort into being as normal and not as heartbroken as I really felt so that I didn't ruin anything for them. For the most part, it had seemed to work because no one had said anything differently to me.

And then I'd stupidly gotten online to check my email last night and had seen pictures of Bella at the airport the day I'd left in the email that Jeannie had sent me.

I realized that I was a pain in the ass client most of the time, but did she really need to send that to me with a note that merely said, _"It's started, Edward. I hope she's ready for this"_?

And even the pretense of trying to be happy and normal had flown completely out the window. I hated that she'd seemed to collapse after I'd left and I hated it even more that there were people around with their stupid cameras to document all of it.

Even more than _that_, I hated that I wasn't there to make it better for her. I hated that all we had were phone calls to each other and I hated that I couldn't be there for her the way I was rightfully supposed to be.

I hated _this_.

I hadn't really been able to sleep that night, thinking about all the people that were probably following Bella around with cameras and making her uncomfortable in her hometown all at my expense. An hour and a half after everyone else had gone to bed, I'd gone back downstairs and had started surfing around to find that there were more pictures of us at the airport. There were a few when I was with her and then the rest had been back to her, sitting in the seat behind her with tears rolling down her cheeks, or leaning against Charlie as he led her towards the escalator and out of the airport altogether.

I'd wanted to scream and throw things and fly my ass back to New York so that I could shield her from all of it. Instead, I'd angrily shut the computer down and had walked back upstairs and into my room in a sad attempt to try falling asleep.

I'd finally fallen asleep staring at the clock next to me at around five in the morning only to be woken up two and a half hours later by Alice.

One of these days, I was going to buy her a muzzle and I didn't give a shit _what_ Jasper thought about it.

Why in the hell was she even here this early anyway? Shouldn't she be doing the gooey gift exchange between her and Jasper first thing this morning instead of torturing me?

"_Edward_!" Alice screamed and I heard the doorknob rattling. "If you're ass isn't up in _five minutes_ I'm bringing up some ice cold water!"

I sighed heavily and threw the pillow across the room, uncurling myself from my sheets and lazily reaching over on the nightstand to grab my cell phone and quickly turn it on.

No matter if my bedroom door was locked, the little pain in the ass would find a way in and she wouldn't be merciful. The ice cold water would probably just be the beginning.

Once my cell phone was on, I punched in the number to my house and placed the phone against my ear, closing my eyes and reaching up to rub my forehead as I listened to it ring.

The one thing that hadn't changed since I'd been back home was the need to hear her voice the minute I woke up. It wasn't the same as waking up with her, but it was as close as either of us was going to get for quite a while.

"Merry Christmas," she answered.

A smile immediately tugged at my lips and I rolled onto my side, reaching out with my free hand to place it on the cold side of the bed where she would've been laying if I were still in New York with her.

"Merry Christmas, love. What time are you going to your dad's?"

"In a few hours," she grunted and I heard the oven door snap shut.

"What are you doing?" I laughed groggily, turning and burying my nose into the extra pillow next to me.

"I'm making pie," she sighed heavily and I smiled.

"What kind of pie?"

"Apple."

"Mm," I mumbled, sucking in a deep breath and trailing my fingers over the spot next to me.

"So what are you gonna end up doing today?" she asked and I heard her grunting again.

Was there really that much involved with making an apple pie? She sounded like she was beating something into submission.

"Well, I was originally planning to sleep in," I sighed, fisting my hand into the sheets and clenching my teeth together. "But apparently that's not allowed."

"How come?"

"Alice."

"Ah."

"Yes."

She laughed and my lips twitched into a smile as I relaxed my hand in the sheets.

"She loves you."

"I wish she'd love me from her and Jasper's house. I can deal with it a lot better when she's there and I'm here."

She laughed again and I rolled onto my back, keeping my eyes closed as I draped my arm over them.

"Do they live in Washington all the time?"

"They have a loft in New York, a castle in Switzerland, a house here, a place in Paris, and I was informed the other day that they've just bought a condo in LA. She's opening a store there," I grumbled, rubbing my forehead again.

"That'll be nice to have her there though, won't it?"

"Yeah, I guess."

She laughed and I smirked again. I loved the sound of her laugh and I loved knowing that I was the one that caused it in the first place.

"She's not that bad."

"You've only seen half of what she can do, my love."

I looked up when I heard the door to my bedroom open and my eyes widened as Alice walked in with a large steel bowl full of what I could only be sure was ice cold water.

"Alice!" I screamed, jumping up off the bed and holding my free hand out to ward her off. "I'm up!"

"As you should be," she nodded, triumphantly. "Now get downstairs."

"Why are you such a pain in my ass?"

"Why are you _being_ such a pain in the ass? It's Christmas for Christ's sake! Get out of bed!"

"I'm up! I'm out!"

"Now get downstairs!"

"In a minute!"

She held the bowl up again and I flinched, holding onto the phone as tightly as I could without crushing it in my grasp. As if the damn thing might shield me from the freezing cold water she was threatening me with.

"Hi Bella!" she chirped before turning on her heel and walking out of the room, whistling to herself.

"Fuck, she's a pain in the ass," I grumbled.

I heard Bella laughing and even as I grabbed a shirt to pull over my head and through my annoyance, I managed to smile. I quickly put the phone down on the bed as I slipped the shirt over my head, picking it up and slowly making my way out into the hallway of my parents' house.

"I miss you, you know," I said softly when she'd calmed down.

"I miss you too," she answered back, sighing.

"We're almost there. February isn't that far away if you really think about it."

"No, I know."

"Edward!" Emmett bellowed, his large frame coming into my field of vision at the bottom of the stairs, his arms spread out at his sides. "Get off the damn phone, boy!"

I often wondered if he was adopted. He was ten times bigger than either me or my father, he was loud and annoying more times than I could really deal with and while he was outgoing and energetic like Alice was, he took it to an extreme. He had to let absolutely everyone know that he'd entered a room and if no one looked up at him when he announced it, he made sure to announce it as many times as it took to get their attention.

It worked well for his professional life – being a sports announcer and all – but in his personal life, all it did was manage to annoy the shit out of those of us that have known him his entire life.

"Emmett! Language!" Esme yelled from some unknown depths of the house.

"It was _damn_, mom! Not fuck!"

"Emmett!" she screeched.

I rolled my eyes and sighed heavily.

"I really miss you," I mumbled.

"Edward!" Alice sang, dancing up behind my brother and jumping onto his back. "Come on! I wanna see what Santa brought me!"

"I'm coming!" I snarled, relaxing a little when I heard Bella laughing at me again.

"I really miss you too," she finally managed.

"Why are you going so slowly? Aren't you the least bit excited?" Alice asked, peering up at me from over Emmett's shoulder.

"Alice, shut up already!" I exclaimed, finally making it to the bottom of the stairs and staring at my brother.

Emmett just laughed, his blue eyes alight with excitement as he reached forward and pushed on my forehead with his palm, almost making me lose my balance before I grabbed onto the banister.

"Get off the phone, lover boy! We've got gifts!" he exclaimed before wrapping his arms tightly around Alice's legs and walking off into the living room.

"Shut up!"

Giving in, I sat on the steps and ran a hand through my hair, pouting at the wall in front of me.

"I guess I'll let you go," I mumbled, pulling on the ends of my hair and closing my eyes tightly.

"Okay," she said quietly and I quickly moved my hand from my hair to place it on my chest over my heart.

Every time we had to get off the phone was like a little piece of me was being ripped away. My only connection with her was this phone and when she wasn't on the other end of the line, I didn't feel the same. I wasn't the same person when I wasn't talking to her or with her and I didn't like it. I didn't like being only half of what I was when I was with her.

I wanted to be _whole_ again.

"Call me when you get back from your dad's, okay?" I asked, swallowing hard and praying that my voice sounded a hell of a lot stronger to her than it did to me.

"I will."

"Promise?"

"I promise that I'll call you as soon as I walk in the house tonight."

"That's all I ask."

She laughed softly and I smirked, starting to rub the heel of my hand over my chest.

"I love you, Bella," I said softly, opening my eyes to stare down at the beige carpet covered stairs I was sitting on.

"I love you too. I'll talk to you tonight."

"That you will. Have a nice dinner, Bella."

"You too."

"Okay," I breathed out, pressing my lips together and closing my eyes again.

"Okay."

I had to force myself – like I'd been having to force myself to do since I'd left – to move the phone from my ear and jam my thumb down on the button to turn it off. Letting out a low, aggravated growl, I buried both of my hands into my hair again, dropping my cell phone onto the steps below me and fisting them amidst the strands, pulling roughly.

I wanted her _here _with me. Being apart from her and living without her hadn't done a damn thing except make me realize how much I really did love her and how much it fucking _hurt_ to be so far away from her.

I'd gotten spoiled when I was there with her. I'd woken up with her almost every morning and coming back to Washington to wake up alone was absolute fucking torture. Not being able to cradle her body against mine or feel her breath on my neck or to hear her mumbling that she loved me in her sleep was unfiltered hell to me.

"Edward?"

My eyes snapped open and I looked up to find first, that my eyes were watering and second, that Emmett was standing on the other side of the railing, one of his big hands curled around one of the thin rails as he looked at me.

I looked away from him, reaching up and rubbing the heels of my hands into my eyes before looking back at him.

"Yeah?" I managed, my voice hoarse and weak.

Christ, I was pathetic. All of this over a damn phone call. With the woman that I was head over heels in fucking love with and hadn't seen in a grand total of three days.

I really was turning into a woman.

"You all right, man?"

"Fine." I waved him off, reaching down to grab my cell phone and stand up. "Just… tired."

"You could've talked to her, you know. We didn't mean… if I'd known that you…"

"It's fine. She was baking and had to get ready to go anyway."

He tilted his head at me, moving quickly and blocking off the stairs to trap me on them. Sighing and suddenly not having the energy to deal with him, I plopped back down on the step and looked up at him.

"Yes, Em, I'm a pathetic, love sick moron just like we always accuse Jasper of being. Go on," I waved a hand at him and hung my head, reaching up and scratching the back of my neck. "Be my guest."

"You _really_ love her."

I looked up at him again, raising an eyebrow and leaning into my hand as I sighed.

"Yes."

"Happened kind of quick, didn't it?"

"Yes."

"But you _really_ love her."

"Your point?" I grumbled, rubbing the back of my neck.

He shrugged, moving out of the way and sitting down on the step next to me. I grunted when he sat on my thigh and moved over, glaring at him and setting my phone down on the step beneath us again to clasp my hands together.

"You've never really committed to anyone since you moved out to California. It just surprises me, is all."

"You don't know Bella." I smiled softly and tapped the sides of my fists against my forehead. "She's pretty fucking perfect."

"No one's perfect," he scoffed, lightly slapping my arm as he leaned his elbows back on the stairs.

"Perfect for me," I said quietly, letting my hands fall out in front of me as I dropped my head down in between them.

"That's some heavy shit."

"Tell me about it," I grumbled, lifting my head and reaching up to rub my face with my hands.

"Miss her a lot, huh?"

"Are you going to continue to state the obvious or is there a point to this conversation?"

He shrugged, looking over at me and grinning.

"I just figured that you'd want to talk to someone. And mom was rounding people up to help her out with dinner so I figured I'd see what you were doing."

I rolled my eyes, running my hands through my hair again. He'd do anything to stay out of the kitchen during the holidays. Our mother was a nervous wreck before all of our relatives showed up and we all did our best to look busy or disappear when she walked into the room looking frazzled and holding a wooden spoon.

Our father usually got sucked into helping because he was too oblivious or focused on a football game to notice when everyone else scattered.

"What about the gifts you and Alice were spewing on about?"

"We're gonna give mom enough time to get the turkey stuffed and then we'll get back to those."

I smirked slightly and laughed a little, shaking my head.

"When do I get to meet her?"

I shrugged, dropping my hands again to stare at the wall in front of us.

"I don't know. I won't see her again until February and even then, I'll be out in California."

"Maybe I'll come and visit."

I shrugged again.

"If you want to."

"If this girl has got you all torn up inside about her, then yeah, I think I definitely need to meet her."

"I'm gonna marry her, Emmett," I said quietly, still staring at the wall. "I don't care if we've only been together for a few weeks and that for half of our relationship, we're gonna be on different sides of the country. One day, I'm going to marry her."

"She knows that?"

I nodded silently, licking my lips.

"I told her that she was it for me. I'm pretty sure that sums it up."

"Did you mean it?"

"More than anything."

"Then I'm happy for you, bro."

I nodded my thanks, swallowing hard around the lump in my throat and not trusting myself to speak.

"But how's that going to work?"

"What?" I choked out, looking over at him again.

"If she's out there and you're over on this side of the country, how in the hell are you two gonna get married?"

I blinked at him.

"We're gonna… uhm…"

"Haven't thought about it, have you?"

"She'll… move here with me?"

"Then why didn't she come out here with you in the first place?"

"She has her… her family and her friends are there. She owns her own bookstore. She can't just pick up and leave for me."

"And do you think any of that will change just because you've got a ring on her finger?"

He raised an eyebrow at me and I stared at him, my mouth moving up and down as I attempted to make some sort of noise or argument.

"Did you ever think of staying there with her, Edward? Ever think of giving everything up or somehow making it work while you stayed in New York so that you could be with her? Did _either_ of you really weigh the options you both _clearly_ have?"

"How am I supposed to stay there?" I asked, glaring over at him and thankful that I'd found my voice.

"How does Nicole Kidman have a house in Nashville and a newborn baby with her husband?"

I stared at him.

"How do you even _know_ something like that?"

"She's still doing movies!" he exclaimed, completely ignoring my question. "She's still acting and her career is perfectly fine, Edward."

I opened my mouth and closed it again, blinking slowly at him. He had a point. There were tons of actors and actresses who didn't live in Los Angeles and still had these huge careers in Hollywood.

Why couldn't mine be the same way?

"Hey!" Alice exclaimed, showing up in front of us out of nowhere. "Turkey's in the oven, let's go."

Emmett clapped me on the back before quickly hoisting himself off of the steps and nearly running Alice over on his quest to get to the living room and plant his ass on the floor in front of the massive Evergreen tree like he did every Christmas, acting as if he hadn't completely altered my way of thinking within the last few minutes he'd been talking to me.

It was absolutely amazing how short his attention span could be.

"You all right, Edward?" Alice asked, her hand on the ball of the banister.

I nodded as I licked my lips and stood up, bending down to grab my phone and walk down the few steps to stand next to her.

"Yeah."

"You miss Bella a lot, huh?" she asked, smiling sadly at me.

I sucked in a deep breath and nodded, offering her a shaky smile before reaching up and ruffling her hair.

"Yeah."

She twisted her lips to the side before launching herself at me and wrapping her arms tightly around my waist. The lump was back in my throat as I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and swallowed hard.

"Don't worry, Edward. You're both gonna be fine."

I nodded, squeezing her once before taking a deep breath and moving from her embrace.

"Come on," I started, clearing my throat. "We've got some gifts to open."

~*~

"Edward, play," my mother demanded, nodding toward the grand piano in the corner of the living room.

I looked over at her, raising an eyebrow and shifting uncomfortably as the rest of our family members stared at me, waiting expectantly.

It was one of our traditions, of course. Every year after dinner and before everyone went home for the night, I was expected to play as many damn Christmas songs as I could possibly think of on the piano. We'd done it as soon as I started playing actual notes instead of just making noise and any other year, I was happy to do it. I loved playing; it gave me an excuse to get lost in thought or in the music and I didn't have to think about the horrid sweater one of my father's oddball relatives had gotten me for Christmas that year or the way my mother kept hinting about this girl she thought I might be interested in that worked at her studio.

But this year, I couldn't even find it in me to want to play happy Christmas carols when all I could think about was Bella and how much I wanted her to be with me right now.

Was I being selfish? Yes. Was it fair to deprive my family members of the one thing they asked of me every year? No. Did it make a damn bit of difference to them that I'd barely said more than necessary to any of them during the entire day? Not at all.

And with Emmett's words still ringing in my ears, it was pretty damn hard to concentrate on small things like positioning my hands on a set of keys just right.

"Mom," I groaned.

"Edward," she stated, raising a perfectly sculpted and expectant eyebrow at me as she started to clean up the wrapping paper in the seating area of the living room that had been neglected when dinner was set on the table.

"Come on, Edward," Alice insisted, reaching over to grab my arm and pull me up. "It won't be that bad."

"Alice, I really…" I started, letting her pull me up and lead me over to the corner of the room.

"I know you're miserable and we all know that the last thing you want to keep doing is pretending to be happy… which you've been doing a very bad job of, by the way. But it's Christmas and I haven't heard you play in a very long time." She pouted up at me, still hanging onto my arm. "I miss your playing, Edward."

Looking down at her, I sighed heavily and nodded, plopping down onto the bench seat and sliding into the middle of it. Alice clapped enthusiastically before sliding onto the bench next to me and watching as I lifted the lid on the keyboard.

For as much as she annoyed me most of the time, she was also practically the only one who could make me do anything that I never wanted to do. I didn't have a scar on the inside of my thigh from falling out of the huge damn tree in the backyard because of Emmett, sadly enough.

I ran my fingertips over the white keys, taking a deep breath and closing my eyes as I positioned my hands.

"It doesn't even have to be all Christmas songs," Alice said quietly in my ear. "Maybe it'll make you feel better."

I opened one eye and scoffed at her before taking another deep breath and closing my eye again.

The only thing that would make me feel better at this point was having Bella sitting by my side instead of Alice.

It's not like I didn't love my family. I did. If it weren't for them, I don't know where I'd be. They were the ones that encouraged me to go to California and see what I could do. They were the ones that told me how much they loved me when I called to tell them that I thought I was going to come home and give it all up. They were the ones that took care of me when I needed them and never asked for anything in return. They were the ones that I could always count on to be there when shit went wrong and I needed somewhere to run to. And I'd never be able to repay them for that or let them really know how much they meant to be.

But it didn't change the fact that I still missed Bella more than anything and the only thing that I'd really wanted for Christmas was to see her and have her tell me that she would just _stay_ with me no matter where we were.

"Come on, Edward," Alice said softly, reaching up and rubbing my shoulder. "Bella wouldn't want to see you like this."

I blew out a deep breath and before I realized it, my fingers were flying across the keys, churning out the melody of _Frosty the Snowman_. I moved on from that and into _Winter Wonderland_, _Silent Night, _and the _Hallelujah chorus_.

I don't know how long I sat at the piano, my head down and my fingers flying across the keys before I realized that I wasn't even attempting to play Christmas carols anymore. It was high notes and low notes and everything in between. My hands were moving over notes that made my heart hurt in one second and in the next, they were tinkling along the higher notes in a way that made my lips twitch into a smirk.

It was the way I felt for Bella in a song, pouring straight from my heart and directly through my fingers, surrounding the room and my family members in everything I felt for the woman I'd fallen in love with without me noticing that this wasn't anything remotely like _Rudolph_.

My hands fell from the keys a few moments later and I slowly looked over to find that Alice wasn't sitting next to me anymore, but wrapped up in Jasper's arms across the room with tears trailing down her cheeks. I tilted my head at her, confused before I looked around to find that the rest of my female family members also appeared to be crying while their significant others held them in their arms and simply stared at me.

Well, hell.

Good job, Edward, you _dumbass_. Make everyone fucking cry on Christmas.

I'm buying a deadbolt for my bedroom and reminding myself to never come downstairs when I wasn't near Bella. This wasn't fair to them; this wasn't what I'd intended to happen.

Swallowing hard, I closed the lid and ran my hands nervously through my hair, standing up and shifting uneasily on my feet.

"Uhm," I laughed nervously.

And before I had a chance to say or do anything else, my mother was flying off the couch out of my father's arms and had her arms wrapped tightly around me as she sniffled into my shoulder.

"Oh, honey," she mumbled, one of her hands reaching up to cup the back of my neck. "That was beautiful."

I dropped my arms, wrapping them around her shoulders and resting my cheek on the top of her head. Alice most definitely got her height from our mother.

"I didn't mean to…"

"Shh," she cut me off, backing up and standing up on her toes to gently kiss my cheek. "It was wonderful."

"Thank you," I said quietly, bowing my head a bit and reaching up to run a hand through my hair again.

It was then that most of my family members decided to take their leave, as always. I was hugged to within an inch of my life, kissed all over my face by my very exuberant and half drunk aunt and patted awkwardly on the back by my uncle as they exited the house. My grandmother was the only one left, sitting in one of our armchairs and talking quietly with my father.

"Well," Emmett boomed, standing up from his position in his armchair to stretch his arms over his head. "I guess that answers my question."

"What question was that?" my father asked, leaning back on the couch and propping his feet on the coffee table in front of him, clearly relaxing now that half of my family members had left.

Emmett looked over at me and smirked, nodding his head once as his arms fell back to his sides.

And I nodded back, sucking in a deep breath and attempting to smile as my grandmother shuffled up to me and hit me in the shins with her cane.

"Who is she?" she rasped, eyeing me.

I looked down at her, still smiling as I took in her white hair, hunched over figure and intent green eyes that I'd inherited from her, completely ignoring the pain in my shins simply because this was my grandmother and that's just what she did. I'd have a huge bruise in the morning, but I wasn't going to be the one to speak up to Elizabeth Mason and get my tongue sliced out. This was the woman who had tried to teach me how to cook on numerous occasions and this was the woman who had kept me in California when all I wanted to do was come home by telling me that I just had to wait and be patient.

Two weeks later, I'd gotten my first movie role and had taken her to the premiere.

"She's my Bella, grams," I answered softly.

"Well come on," she rapped my shins again before grabbing my hand in her frail one and leading me back towards the couch, "tell us about her."

"Mom, don't you have to get going? It's getting pretty late," my mother asked from her position against my father's side.

"Oh," she waved a hand at her and I helped her sit down in another armchair, "there are only so many times my grandson can fall in love with someone."

"Hey!" Emmett whined, pouting down at her. "You never wanted to hear about my previous girlfriends!"

"When you get your ass in gear," she wagged a finger at him, "and finally find the one for you, I want to hear all about her too."

He huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, bending down and reaching underneath the tree to grab the tin of sugar cookies my aunt gave to us every year. Still slightly pouting, he flopped onto the floor and protectively held the tin in his lap as he savagely ripped off the top.

"Emmett, dude," Jasper laughed, finally speaking up as he led Alice back into the middle of the room and pulled her onto his lap as he sat down on an ottoman. "That thing is gonna be gone by morning."

"So?" he mumbled, his mouth already full.

"You're disgusting," Alice laughed, gently kicking his knee with her toes.

He narrowed his eyes at her, his mouth still chewing as he curled up into the smallest ball he could manage in an attempt to hide the tin from her.

"Mine."

"With you drooling all over them, who says I'd want one anyway?" she scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against Jasper.

I laughed at them, shaking my head before my grandmother brought me back to attention by hitting my shins yet again.

Next year, I was wearing protective gear.

Next year, I was bringing Bella so that my grandmother could do more than just hear about her.

"Come on, boy," she demanded, her eyes bright as she leaned back in the chair and set her cane off to the side. "I'm not getting any younger."

I laughed again, my heart feeling a bit lighter as I sat down on the couch next to my parents and took a deep breath before I began to tell all of them everything I could possibly think of about my Bella.

~*~

***December 31***

"You're going."

I barely looked up from the television, absently flipping through channels as I shook my head.

Emmett had dragged me down into the basement to the underused gym he'd begged my parents for in his senior year of high school in a sad attempt to get my mind off of things, mumbling something about brother bonding time.

He only managed to piss me off when he kept bringing up going out with Jasper for a few hours before the party and the target that was painted on the punching bag quickly morphed into his face.

I didn't want to go anywhere. I was perfectly content holing myself up in this house until I had to leave the day after tomorrow. But he kept trying and only pissing me off some more and I didn't realize that I'd been down there for three fucking hours with him until my back started aching about fifteen minutes ago.

And now Alice seemed to jump on the bandwagon and wanted me out of the house. Or, at the very least, out of her face for a while.

I was just as stubborn as she was and damn it all to hell if I was going to leave to go to a packed bar in the middle of Port Angeles for no rational reason on New Year's Eve.

"No, I'm not."

"Mom and I have a lot to do tonight and you can't be sitting in our way while we do it."

"Then decorate me. It wouldn't be the first time."

"Edward!" Alice screeched, reaching forward and smacking my arm.

I merely raised an eyebrow at her, flipping past another channel and shaking my head again.

"Get out of the god damned house for a few fucking hours! We've all tried to be understanding and accepting of this funk you're in but it's becoming too much to handle right now. Jasper and Emmett want to go the pool hall for a little while. Go. With. Them."

Yes, I'd been a miserable bastard for the past three days. After Christmas, things hadn't been too horrible. I'd been able to tell my family all about Bella and it seemed to lighten the load sitting on my chest until I saw a few more pictures of her arriving and then walking up to her store.

I knew they'd eventually find her and photograph every little thing she did, but it didn't make it any easier. I was just really fucking happy that they hadn't seemed to follow her home yet. I hadn't seen my house pop up on any of the gossip sites that I'd been stalking for a few days now and though I still hated them, I loved that they hadn't taken it to that next step quite yet.

I knew it was coming, but the later the better. Once someone followed her home, I knew I'd have to convince her to move somehow. And I was pretty positive that that wouldn't be a very fun conversation to have with her.

"If I don't go?"

"I'm calling Bella and telling her to cancel her plans in February because you told me to."

My eyes widened and I snapped my head in her direction, pressing my lips into a tight line and wrapping my fingers a little tighter around the remote control.

"You wouldn't," I said through my teeth.

She grabbed my cell phone from its place on the coffee table and poised her finger over the speed dial button to my house, tilting her head challengingly at me.

"Get up."

"Give me the phone."

"Get up first."

"Give me the phone first."

I heard her push down on the number and launched myself off of the couch, throwing the remote down on the couch next to me, easily taking the phone from her and quickly clearing the screen.

"Good! Now go upstairs and take a shower," she chirped. "They're leaving in an hour and you smell like ass."

"You owe me."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she mumbled, waving me off as she turned on her heel and walked out of the room, screaming for our mother.

I glared at her retreating back before dragging myself towards the stairs, grumbling the whole way about how much I didn't miss living at home with her.

And in the entire week that I'd been home, it had seemed that she and Jasper spent more time here than they did at their own house. They were here when I came down the steps in the morning and they stayed until my parents went to bed.

I wasn't even sure if Jasper saw his own family for Christmas since they'd been here with us the entire day. Hell, at this point, I wasn't sure Jasper even _had_ parents that he was contractually obligated to see for holidays because neither of them spoke about them.

Emmett, too. He'd been there every waking moment and I was beginning to wonder if he remembered where his own home was located.

Groaning and glaring at the doorway Alice had disappeared through a few seconds ago, I started my way up the stairs and stared down at the screen of my phone.

It was a little past three thirty here, meaning that it was a little past six thirty over in New York, meaning that Bella should've been out of work and on this phone with me a few hours ago. I'd been distracted enough that I hadn't noticed before, but now that it was brought to my attention, I didn't like it. She'd said last night that she was closing as soon as she could since she was sure Rosalie would be breathing down her neck at that point, judged it to be around quarter to four and would call me as soon as she got home.

But my phone hadn't rung yet. It hadn't lit up and the stupid ring tone of that damn song that Angela played that day in the studio, _"Come on, Get Higher"_ hadn't sounded yet.

Reaching up and scratching the back of my head, I made it up the rest of the stairs and walked into my room, still staring at the phone as I stood still in the doorway.

I shook my head at myself, hastily pushing down the speed dial number and hitting the call button. If she wasn't going to call me, well, I was damn well going to call her. We had a system and I wasn't going one day without hearing her voice for the second out of three total times that day.

No. It wasn't going to happen. This was all I had. No way was I going to let it slip.

I grabbed an extra set of boxers and a clean pair of jeans as I listened to the phone ring on the other end, nervously chewing on my bottom lip as I slowly walked out of my room and towards the bathroom at the end of the hallway. I jumped three feet in the air when I heard an automated voice through the line, clearly telling me that no one was home and to leave a message.

When the fuck did I get an answering machine?

I hung up and stood in the middle of the hallway, checking the number to make sure that it was the same number that I'd used earlier in the day. Growling at the phone, I called it again before marching into the bathroom and closing the door behind me.

When the stupid voice answered again, I clenched my teeth together and hastily ended the call again.

Okay, logically, she'd probably gotten all of her things moved into the house at this point. Logically, it probably meant that she'd brought the answering machine with her.

Logically, she should've been _home_ at this point and I never would've been any wiser about it.

Why wasn't she home? Why didn't she have a cell phone?

Chucking the phone into the sink, I ran my hands through my hair and took a deep breath, closing my eyes tightly.

She just wasn't home yet, Edward. She could've gotten held up at work. She could've had some paperwork to go over. Just because she wasn't answering the phone didn't mean that she'd been attacked by thousands of paparazzi or chased down the street by a horde of screaming and highly upset teenage girls.

Bella had a life.

That was the whole fucking reason she wasn't here with me right now.

She had a life that couldn't just _stop_ when I called no matter how much either of us may have wanted it to. Not everything is in perfect time or order or anything else.

She'd said that she was going out with Rosalie and Angela tonight – maybe they left early and wouldn't let her call beforehand. Or maybe she was in the shower and getting ready.

Yeah. There were tons of other, more _logical_ reasons as to why she wasn't picking up the phone.

Sucking in a deep breath, I shed my clothes and walked over to the glassed-in shower, flicking on the knobs and willing my heart to stay in one fucking piece for longer than a few damn minutes at a time.

~*~

"Why are we here?" I grumbled as I followed Jasper and Emmett into the crowded pool hall.

"Isn't that the greatest question of all?" Jasper asked, smirking as he looked over his shoulder at me.

I scowled at him, keeping my head down as we walked up to the counter and waited in line to get the balls from the bodyguard-like guy standing behind it.

"Not what I meant."

"Loosen the fuck up, Edward," Emmett sighed, glaring over at me as he slapped money down onto the counter. "It's New Year's Eve, we've got the women at home making the house all festive like and in a few short hours, there will be some pretty hot fucking women running around with alcohol in their hands, completely ready to rid you of all your worries."

I glared at him, hooking my thumbs into my pockets and forcing them to stay there.

My brother could be a real dickhead when he wanted to be.

"Bella," was all I said.

"Is her snatch made of gold or something?" he asked, grabbing the padded box of pool balls from the counter and turning to me.

My hands balled up into fists and once again, I had to force myself to keep them at my sides as my vision glazed over in red. _No one_ spoke about Bella that way; especially a member of my own damn family.

"Shut. Up."

"All right, enough," Jasper said, rolling his eyes as he stood in between us and held his hands out at his sides. "We were told that we weren't allowed back to the house until at least ten so both of you, shut up and start enjoying yourselves."

"I've been trying to!" Emmett exclaimed. "But he's been all whiny and bitchy since he came home."

I chose to ignore that comment, glaring at him quickly before looking back to Jasper.

"Ten? Isn't that kind of late?"

Jasper shrugged, shaking his dirty blonde hair out of his eyes and slowly lowering his arms when Emmett abruptly turned and started towards the other side of the room, eventually disappearing down the set of stairs that led to the bar area and a few more pool tables.

"I just do what I'm told."

"Aren't people going to start showing up at around nine or something?"

"Dude," he stated, rolling his head onto his shoulder to look at me and raise an eyebrow, "I've given up trying to reason and ask questions with Alice. It gives me a headache."

I smirked and nodded at him, understanding completely.

"Come on," I sighed, nodding toward the staircase. "He's gonna kill me if we don't get down there."

"You really do need to cheer up, though," he stated, punching my shoulder. "We know that you miss her, but _we've_ missed _you_. Cut us some slack."

"Sorry," I grumbled, hunching my shoulders and sighing as I scanned the room.

It was amazing the kinds of people that showed up on New Year's Eve. High school kids hanging out and leaning against pool cues; men and women dressed in their best and probably only stopping in quickly before they headed off to a ritzy party for the night; sleazy guys leaning against the walls and eyeing everything walking by them that had breasts and wore heels.

My heart stopped when I saw a familiar shade of brown hair weaving in between bodies, one of her delicate hands clasped in another blonde girl's hand as they made their way over to the bathroom. My mouth fell open and I took a step forward, swallowing hard even as my heart starting working again, jumping in excitement in my chest.

I ignored Jasper completely, waving him off as I started off in the direction the girls had taken and only stopping when they turned around.

My heart fell and I swallowed again, shaking my head at myself before turning around and heading back to a very confused Jasper.

Of course she wasn't here. That was insane. She would've told me if she was coming out here. I would've known and I sure as fuck wouldn't be hanging out with my brother and brother-in-law.

"You all right?"

I nodded, forcing a smile on my face as I looked up at him.

"Thought I saw… someone I knew," I said, shrugging before turning towards the staircase and quickly walking over to it.

I needed a beer.

And Bella.

~*~

By the time we'd finished our third and last game of pool and were walking out of the building, it was ten-thirty, I'd consumed about five bottles of beer, had posed for a shit ton of pictures with a few fans when they'd come up to me and I'd "seen" Bella about sixteen different times.

By the fifth time, I was beginning to get pissed off. It was a flash of hair or the faint sound of her laughter or the smell of her perfume or the complete illusion that she was the girl pressed up against the wall on the other side of the room with a pool cue in her hand.

There were a few reasons I could think of for why this was happening; I was losing my mind, Emmett had slipped something in my beer when I wasn't looking or I was wishing and hoping way too damn hard that she'd just appear out of thin air.

My heart hurt, I was slightly lightheaded and I hadn't managed to win a single damn game of pool no matter how much English I spun on the stupid cue ball.

Emmett and Jasper had taken great joy in beating my ass every chance they got and no matter how hard I tried, I missed almost every single shot I tried to make. But my head wasn't in the game. I was trying so damn hard to be upbeat and show my family that I'd missed them just as much as Jasper had claimed that they'd missed me but it wasn't working. My head was in a cabin in upstate New York and I couldn't do a damn thing to change it.

To make matters even worse, the real Bella still hadn't called me. I'd had my cell phone glued to my side all damn night and her ring tone hadn't sounded through yet. Jeannie's had, Tanya's had and even Alice's had at one point to ask us when we were going to come home, but not Bella's.

It was way past midnight in New York at this point and she hadn't even called to wish me a happy New Year. I hadn't heard a word from her since I'd called her this morning when I woke up.

I was beyond even being worried or slightly pissed off at this point – I was fucking terrified that something had happened to her.

And when I voiced this, Emmett not so politely told me that if something had happened, someone else would've called me at this point and that I needed to get my head out from between her legs and get it back into the game.

Not that it was ever in the game to begin with but I guess that didn't make a difference to him.

I'd decided that I was buying her a cell phone and I didn't care what she had to say about it. This was driving me insane; not hearing from her and not knowing whether she was okay or not and not being able to get a hold of her or anyone else. I'd even tried to call Rosalie and Angela's homes – after a very frustrating call put in to information – but no one was answering there either.

"Dude, calm the fuck down," Emmett rolled his eyes as he pulled out of our parking spot once the guys with cameras that had spotted us a few hours ago had moved and started down the road. "She's probably just trashed and hasn't been able to figure out how to work a phone."

I glared at him and crossed my arms over my chest, leaning against the seats in the back and not so gently kicking the back of his seat.

"Easy on the seats! I just had this cleaned!" he screeched, reaching back and smacking the side of my head.

I grabbed his wrist and twisted it, waiting to hear him howl in pain before letting go and glaring at the back of his head.

"There are paparazzi out there, watching her every move, Emmett! Something could've happened to her; one of them could've hurt her!"

"Listen, her father's a police guy right?" Jasper sighed, twisting around in the front seat to look back at me.

I nodded.

"And if anything had happened to her, you'd probably be one of the first people that he'd call. You haven't heard from him so I wouldn't worry about it. No news is good news."

Damn optimistic asshole had a point. Did it stop my brain from nagging me? Not a chance in hell. But there was also a smaller part of my brain telling me that he was right and I knew it. I was getting worked up over my girlfriend having a life and going out to have fun like I made her promise me that she'd do. Just because she hadn't _called_ didn't mean anything.

The car ride continued, Emmett and Jasper both hurling insults at me and I humored them enough to sneer and kick their seats before Emmett started bitching that I was worse than Jasper was.

And I really didn't want to deal with _that_ conversation again. It was ongoing and it had gotten monotonous and pointless over the years, only succeeding in pissing almost everyone off until someone bought a round of beer to shut everyone else up.

We finally pulled up to the house, not at all surprised to find that the driveway was full of cars, the house was completely lit up from top to bottom and I could already see people out smoking on the patio facing my mother's prized vegetable garden, their voices raised in drunken laughter.

"Late, aren't we?" Emmett mused before parking the car off to the side of the driveway and snatching the keys from the ignition.

"You might say that," Jasper agreed, nodding as he pushed open the car door and climbed out.

"Worth it, though," I managed to say as I unfolded myself from the back of the car.

And then Emmett was standing next to me, one of his arms flung over my shoulders as he leaned on me and started up the path to the front door, weaving us in between cars.

"I'm so gonna get you laid tonight, brother."

I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

"No, you're not."

"We'll see," he grinned, letting go of me and hopping up the steps to the door.

"You'd think that he never had a steady girlfriend before," I grumbled to Jasper as we walked up the stairs as well.

"Hey, he's single and having fun." He shrugged, pushing through the half-open door. "Sometimes I envy him."

"Don't let Alice hear you say that," I grumbled, trying to shoulder my way around people in an attempt to find a place that I could breathe in.

There were bodies everywhere and the music was decently loud, drowning everything else out as we walked further into the room. Emmett had already disappeared and was probably hitting on some of the scantily-clad women he always invited to these things. Looking behind me, I noticed that Jasper had disappeared as well and sighed, shaking my head as I finally made my way over to the stairs.

"Hey!"

I looked up to see Alice skipping down the stairs, her hand resting lightly against the railing. She smiled as she finally reached me, throwing her tiny arms around my neck. I laughed and hugged her back, shaking my head and wondering how many drinks she'd had throughout the night.

"What do you think?" she yelled, backing away from me and somehow managing to twirl around on the step she was on without falling off.

"You look amazing, Al!"

She was wearing a red silk dress, her hair was all styled and she looked the absolute epitome of New Year's Eve hostess.

"Naturally." She grinned at me, slapping my arm. "There's a suit on your bed in your room. Go."

"Alice," I sighed, shaking my head. "Do I really need to get all dressed up?"

"Please?" she asked, her bottom lip poking out in a pout and her eyes widening in the exact way she knew I wouldn't be able to resist.

"Fine," I sighed heavily, shaking my head and gripping the stair railing in my hand.

"Thanks, Edward!"

She leaned down and kissed my cheek before walking by me and into the sea of people. I smirked and shook my head before pulling myself up the stairs and finding my way to my room.

As she'd said, there was a black suit lying out on my bed with a very thin tie wrapped around the hanger and a pair of shiny black, surely uncomfortable dress shoes waiting for me.

Why was there always a need to get dressed up for New Year's Eve anyway? Most people just got completely trashed at whatever party they were at and ended up ruining all their good clothes and then bitching about it the next day.

But this was Alice. And Alice needed to have everyone looking their best for reasons unbeknownst to me. She didn't care what they did or what they got on them as long as they were wearing them and looked good while they were at it.

Shaking my head, I stripped and pulled the suit on, walking over to the mirror over the chest of drawers I've had since I was sixteen and adjusting my tie before grabbing the shoes and sliding them on my feet. Finished with that, I grabbed the jacket and slung it over my shoulders, grabbing my cell phone and looking down at the screen one more time before heading back down the stairs.

Still nothing.

It seemed that the party had grown immensely in the fifteen or so minutes that I was occupied. My family was huddled in the middle of the living room, right underneath the completely unnecessary disco ball Emmett had insisted upon a few nights ago. I swallowed hard when I saw a brown head of hair that clearly didn't belong to the family members of mine that were surrounding her and closed my eyes tightly, gripping the railing as I walked down the rest of the stairs.

She wasn't here, Edward. Knock it off. It was probably just another one of my parents' colleagues or a friend of Alice's or my brother's. It was _not_ Bella.

Opening my eyes again, I made it to the bottom of the stairs and quickly snaked around people to the drink and food table I'd seen on the other end of the room from the top of the staircase. Grabbing a bottle of beer, I twisted the top off and threw it with the rest of the tops on the table before turning around and stuffing my free hand in my pocket.

The family huddle I'd seen in the middle of the room had disappeared and there stood Bella.

Or who I thought was Bella.

She was just standing there, with her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes trained on me. Great. Now my mind was actually conjuring up complete _replicas_ of my girlfriend. Perfect. Just what I needed to deal with. As if it wasn't hard enough to begin with; now my mind had put her in a long black curve-hugging gown, curled her hair and had her standing directly in the middle of the room underneath that damn disco ball. She was gorgeous and a complete figment of my imagination. I wasn't going to fool myself this time. This time, I knew better and I wasn't going to get my hopes up.

I scoffed and rolled my eyes, looking away and lifting the beer bottle to my lips even as my heart cracked painfully in my chest.

_She wasn't here. She's not standing there. She's on the other side of the country, probably blissfully drunk and hopefully safe. She's __**not **__**here**__._

My eyes trailed back to the middle of the room on their own and she was still standing there. Her bottom lip was in between her teeth and her hands were nervously twisting around each other as she stared back at me.

I narrowed my eyes at her, lifting the bottle to my mouth again as she continued to stare back at me. I watched as she turned slightly, standing on her toes as she seemed to search for someone in the crowd.

And I knew that when she turned back around, it would be someone different who was eyeing me from across the room. It wouldn't be her and despite my best efforts, my heart would crack a little more when I realized that I was right.

But then she did turn around and the lights from the disco ball glinted off of a tear on her cheek as she faced me again. It was still her; it was still Bella standing there in the middle of the room. And I just stared at her, my mouth hanging open.

In all the times that I'd imagined her tonight, she'd never been crying. She'd never been upset; always laughing and seemingly very happy in everything I'd imagined.

I watched as she looked away from me, over to her right at what was probably the front door and I dropped the beer bottle on the floor by my feet as my heart quickly seemed to mend itself and started beating rapidly against my ribs again.

It _was_ Bella. She was _here_.

A breath _whooshed_ out of my lungs and my mouth dropped open when she turned back to face me again, reaching up to wipe the tears off of her cheeks. I swallowed hard, reaching up and rubbing my hands over my face, looking between the spaces of my fingers to make sure that she was still standing there and that it _was_ really her.

She was still there, only now she was looking down at her feet and had her arms crossed over her chest, one of her hands up by her face.

She was still crying.

Oh, fuck.

No. No crying. She wasn't supposed to cry. She was too beautiful and she was too _real_ to cry. She was _real_.

I made my legs move, my arms falling limply to my sides as I tripped over my own feet and pushed by people as they got in my way before I reached her. She looked up at me, her eyes wet and glistening as she dropped her arms to her sides and pressed her lips together.

"It's you," I whispered, reaching up with a shaky hand to brush hair behind her ear.

And the sparks – the ones I'd gotten used to and only briefly felt anymore were back in full force with that little gesture. My heart picked up speed and I choked out a laugh as she continued to look up at me, her bottom lip now back in her mouth before she nodded once.

"It's really…" I choked out, shaking my head before bending my knees and grabbing her around the waist, pulling her against me and lifting her off the floor to hold onto her as tightly as fucking possible. "Oh, God, it's really you."

Her arms wrapped around my neck, holding on just as tightly to me as she buried her face into my chest and nodded again. I let out a crazed laugh and closed my eyes tightly, swaying us back and forth as I buried my face in her neck.

I couldn't stop smiling or breathing her in or clinging to her and I didn't give a good damn about who might've been watching this entire thing.

I had my world back and that was all that mattered.

~*~

**Yes, I'm mean. But chapter thirty is already in the works so no worries about that!**

**Thanks again for all the support and love for this story. Blows my fucking mind.**


	30. Couldn't Love You More

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**How's this for fast updating? Haha.**

**Okay so… I love you guys. I say it every time and I mean it more with each chapter because you're all just that fucking amazing. I suck at replying and I'm sorry for that, but I do read every one of them and take into consideration everything you all have to say to me.**

**Shout outs: the girls over at Twilighted who forever amaze, entertain and keep my spirits up, everyone recommending this story to friends or on communities – you guys are beautiful – and of course, to Angie, who gets stuck listening to my agonizing whenever I start a new chapter.**

**Song for this chapter: Couldn't Love You More by Edwin McCain.**

**Oh, I have a playlist up for this story over on my LiveJournal. Link to that is on my profile if you're interested.**

**Now, enjoy!**

~*~

***Bella***

I was never letting Alice drive me anywhere ever again. It had taken her all of twenty-five minutes to drive from the airport to the huge house on the hill that I didn't have time to gawk at instead of the hour that she informed me it should've taken.

My nerves were shot. I was dressed in a long black silk gown that Alice had brought with her to the airport, had only allowed her the smallest amount of make-up despite her whining, was wearing a pair of heels that had the potential to kill me and I was almost too fucking scared to move from my seat once she'd parked in the garage. It could've been just pure terror that kept me rooted to the seat as Alice bounced out or it could've been the fact that I really couldn't comprehend that I was going to see Edward tonight.

None of this seemed real. The plane ride didn't seem real, the insanely short drive to what could only be classified as a mansion didn't seem real, this _dress_ and these damn _heels_ didn't seem real and it sure as hell didn't seem real that Edward was only a short walk away from me.

"Come on, Bella!" Alice laughed, yanking open my door and grabbing my arm. "They'll be home any minute and I need to do your hair!"

I let her pull me out of the car, shaking my head and wondering where he was if not inside as I followed her – half-tripping – into a house that was packed with what seemed like thousands of people. Half of my little town could fit into this damn house and there'd still be plenty of room for the next town over.

She pulled me up a staircase and then down a long hallway before shoving me into a bathroom and immediately grabbing an already warm curling iron.

I wasn't even going to ask her anything about it because I was pretty sure that I didn't want to know.

"He's going to die when he sees you," she giggled before grabbing onto a lock of my hair and twisting it into the iron. "And it'll be really nice to not have to see him looking so damn depressed."

"What if he doesn't want me here?"

She looked over my shoulder, clearly standing on her toes, to glare at me in the mirror.

"Did you take some sort of drugs while you were on the plane, Bella? He's done nothing but miss you. I wasn't kidding when I said that the only time he seemed human again was when he was talking about you or to you."

"I didn't want him to feel like that," I swallowed hard, pressing my hands against my suddenly queasy stomach.

"Nothing was going to stop him. Now stop worrying."

She lightly slapped my shoulder before she disappeared behind me and began tugging on my hair again.

"He told our grandmother about you, you know," she started.

"Okay," I said slowly, fanning my fingers out on my stomach and closing my eyes.

"He doesn't tell our grandmother about anyone."

I swallowed hard and couldn't fight the smile tugging at my lips.

"You have absolutely nothing to worry about, Bella. He's not gonna know what to do with you first."

"Oh, I've got a few ideas," I breathed out, laughing.

"That's my girl!"

"I didn't… mean it like that," I mumbled, feeling my face heat up.

"Well, it works either way," she stated brightly.

The door burst open and I jumped, looking over to find Esme standing in the doorway. She was wearing a long purple dress, her red-brown hair pulled up into what I assumed was a French twist, a bright smile on her face and her blue eyes shining with what I could only interpret as excitement. I'd met her only briefly once a few years ago, but I could've sworn that she never aged. There were no wrinkles threatening any part of her face, unlike my own mother's, and she seemed to have half the energy Alice must've gotten from her.

"Bella!" she exclaimed, walking over to us and wrapping her arms tightly around my waist, careful to avoid Alice's iron. "I'm so happy to see you again!"

I laughed and nodded, trying not to move too much as I hugged her back.

"You, too, Esme."

"And you look so beautiful! Oh, he's not going to know what to do with you first."

Alice burst out laughing and I sighed heavily, smirking and shaking my head slightly.

"What's the plan, Al?" Esme asked, slowly circling us and nodding in approval.

I felt a bit like a monkey in a cage with the way Esme was accessing me and Alice was grooming me. If she started sorting through my hair and looking for bugs, I was leaving.

"Jasper texted me when they were leaving the pool hall about forty-five minutes ago. They should be here any minute."

"Go get ready! I'll take care of Bella."

I swallowed hard, the reality of Esme being my boyfriend's mother finally sinking into my head as I watched her move behind me and take the curling iron from Alice's hands.

"Calm down, Bella!" Alice exclaimed, gently patting my shoulder before she sprinted out of the bathroom.

Yeah, right, because this situation was definitely going to put me at ease. I had no idea how Esme felt about me and I had no idea how she felt about me dating her extremely famous and talented son. Maybe she hated me or thought that I wasn't good enough for him. Maybe she'd use this opportunity to _accidentally_ burn the side of my face and rush me to the hospital to keep me away from Edward for a little while longer.

I pushed my hands even tighter against my stomach as I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on taking deep breaths.

"I always wondered how long it would take for the two of you get together," she mused before pulling up another lock of hair and twisting it around the iron.

I looked up, meeting her eyes as she peered over my shoulder in the mirror and tried to smile at her.

"Really?"

She nodded, smiling back at me as she rolled the iron to my head.

"The way you two interacted when I was there brought something out in him that I hadn't seen in a very long time. I was worried that he was spending too much time out in California and was becoming one of the irresponsible man whores you see on TV or hear about in the papers and such."

My jaw dropped open at Esme's terminology before I covered my mouth with my hand and laughed.

"But," she laughed, holding up one finger as she slowly uncurled my hair from the iron, "when I saw him with you, it was easy to see that my fears were unfounded. Even though you two weren't dating yet, there was something very clearly there between you. I've never seen him this torn up about anyone before and while I don't enjoy it, I'm glad to see that he's still my son."

My eyes watered and I dropped my hand to place it on my stomach again, biting my bottom lip as she grabbed the last visible patch of hair and twirled it around the iron.

"And I'm glad that he's with you," she said quietly, dropping my hair from the iron once it was curled. "You seem to be exactly what he needs and I'm thankful that you're finally together."

She moved to my side and set the iron down on the counter, grabbing my shoulders and turning me to face her.

"I respect you for not dropping everything for him." She grabbed a can of hairspray and I quickly closed my eyes and scrunched up my nose in preparation. "And I like that you're strong and are sticking your ground."

She sprayed my hair, walking in another circle around me before coming to a stop. I opened my eyes again and relaxed as she put the can on the counter as well.

"But if you've felt half of what Edward has this past week, then the both of you really need to sit down and talk about what you're going to do." She smiled softly and tilted her head, placing her hands on my cheeks and leaning up to kiss my forehead. "It's not worth it in the long run to live without your other half."

"No," I choked out, shaking my head and sucking in a deep breath, "it's not."

She smiled and pushed hair back from my face like my mother would do when I was younger and in need of comforting.

"Deep breaths; no crying," she smiled, stepping down. "Tonight starts a new year for all of us and it's definitely not a night for crying."

I took another deep breath and closed my eyes briefly, shaking my head before opening my eyes and smiling down at her.

"I love him, you know," I said softly.

"Oh, honey, I knew that before either of you even thought about it."

I laughed and shrugged.

"We're late bloomers."

She laughed and pulled me into a hug that I gratefully returned. She didn't hate me and hadn't tried to burn my face off and aside from Alice's crazy driving on the way here, the night seemed to be a success so far.

And now, I wanted Edward. I wanted him in my arms, I wanted his lips on mine and I wanted his voice in my ear. Fuck, I just wanted him.

We both jumped apart when the door slammed open and turned to find a very large man taking up the entire doorway dressed in a nice suit and with a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Emmett," Esme sighed, shaking her head.

"There she is!" He barreled over to me and grabbed me into a hug, lifting me completely off the floor and causing me to shriek loudly as I grabbed onto his shoulders for any type of support. "'Bout damn time you got here, woman!"

He set me back down on my feet and stepped back, still grinning at me as I gaped up at him.

To be perfectly honest, I was pretty damn terrified. He was _huge_ and probably had the ability to crush me if he felt so inclined to do so.

"Emmett, was that really necessary?"

"Hey, if she's the one that's gonna get Edward all… not bitchy, then I love her already. Do you know he's been staring at his phone the entire night?"

I opened my mouth, my voice coming out in a squeak as I said, "He has?"

He nodded, rolling his eyes.

"Do you know how hard it was not to tell him that you were coming? My God and he _whines _like it's his damn job or something!" He rolled his eyes again and reached up to thread his fingers through his short, curly hair. "So, we're all really thankful that you're here."

"Emmett," Esme hissed, glaring at him. "Where is he?"

"Changing, I think. I saw Alice heading down there to him so I can only assume that's what he's doing right now."

"And Jasper?"

"Changing."

"Okay, Bella." Esme reached over and grabbed my hand, smiling reassuringly at me. "Are you ready?"

"God, yes."

Emmett laughed loudly and pushed his way out of the bathroom, looking up and down the hallway before motioning us with his hand to come up behind him like we were on a top secret mission. I heard Esme sigh and looked over to find her shaking her head and I laughed quietly, following her as she led us out of the bathroom and down the stairs.

Alice was easy to pick out; she'd been talking about that red halter dress the entire ride from the airport. She was standing with who I assumed was Jasper, the tall, thin dirty blonde guy that had a protective arm wrapped around her waist in the middle of the entire room, underneath a disco ball of all things.

"Cool, huh?" Emmett asked from behind me as we reached the landing. "My idea."

I looked behind me and gave him an uneasy laugh before being whisked in between people and narrowly missed having a drink dumped over my head before Emmett pushed the guy out of the way.

Alice was quick to introduce me to Jasper and I shook his hand, smiling nervously at him as they all huddled around me. Carlisle joined us shortly after that and once I was re-introduced to him, Alice hissed to us that he was walking down the stairs.

The butterflies that hadn't had a chance to make an appearance yet came out in full force in my stomach and I blew out a shaky breath, turning around in a circle to see if I could find him.

"Okay, he's getting a drink," Jasper stated, his full lips twisted to the side and his bright brown eyes alight with mischief. "Let's go."

And with that, they all disappeared from around me. Blinking at the spaces they'd occupied a few seconds ago and shaking my head, I turned to face the table I'd seen as I walked down the stairs and found him, dressed to the nine's in a suit that made my mouth water.

I don't know if I expected him to look any differently from our time apart, but seeing him right this minute reminded me of the first time I'd talked to him. My hands were shaking, my heart was beating rapidly against my chest and my throat had gone bone dry in much the same fashion as when I showed up on his porch with a case of beer. I clasped my hands in front of me to keep them steady and boldly met his eyes.

And he was still just… everything. My heart, my soul, every fiber of my being was wrapped up in everything about him and I was finally going to be with him again. It didn't matter that I was nervous or that it felt like little pieces of me might break off if I didn't get this shaking under control. All that mattered was that we were that much closer to being together again.

But he was glaring at me as I stared back at him and I swallowed hard. Why was he looking at me that way? Why wasn't he over here, wrapping me up in his arms and telling me how much he missed me?

I continued to watch as he rolled his eyes and looked away from me, lifting the beer bottle to his lips and shaking his head. I felt my eyes water and turned on my heel, trying to find Alice so that I could ask her if this was what he really wanted.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe we were all wrong and he didn't want me here at all. Maybe our phone conversations were just pointless and meaningless and he just thought that it'd be funny to string me along while he was away. My dream came back at me full force, his words ringing in my head; _"Oh, Bella, I'm an __**actor**__. I can make you believe anything."_

I didn't see Alice anywhere and ended up turning to face him again. My hands were twisting nervously around each other and my bottom lip was in between my teeth as I watched him standing there with the same look on his face. I felt a tear travel down my cheek and looked over at the front door, wondering if there was any way I could get out of it without someone coming after me.

Knowing that would never happen, I reached up and wiped the tears off my cheeks, wondering if this night could possibly get any worse. I'd been so damn happy a minute ago, knowing that I'd see him soon and feel like I was complete once again. Now I just felt like an ass and wanted to go back to New York and hide in my empty house.

I looked down at my feet and crossed one arm under my breasts, reaching up with one hand to keep the tears off of my face for just a few minutes longer.

I couldn't even move. It was like my feet were rooted to the ground and there was absolutely no way I'd be able to move no matter how much the situation called for it.

I looked up, startled when I saw a pair of overly shiny shoes enter my vision and saw that he was standing in front of me, looking frazzled and slightly dazed.

"It's you," he whispered.

And when he reached up to push hair behind my ear, everything inside of me melted. I felt complete and whole and _home_ and could only nod. And then I was in his arms, lifted off the floor and clinging to his neck as he buried his face into my hair and swayed us from side to side while mumbling things that I didn't understand into my ear.

I didn't care that he'd been glaring at me a minute ago, I didn't care that I'd felt like my world was caving in around me; all I cared about right now was that I was _finally_ back where I belonged.

"It's really you," he whispered as he set me down on my feet and reached up to frame my face in his hands.

I just nodded again, letting out a strangled laugh as I grabbed onto his wrists and rubbed my thumbs over the undersides of them.

"I've been seeing you everywhere," he choked out, stepping up against me and leaning down to rest his forehead on mine. "I didn't think it was really… I'm sorry."

I shook my head, closing my eyes briefly and pressing my lips together tightly.

"It's okay. It's okay, it's okay," I laughed shakily, forcing a breath into my lungs. "I'm here."

His lips were on mine then, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth as he rubbed his thumbs over my cheeks. I moved my hands from his wrists, reaching out and placing them on his waist, fisting my fingers into his suit jacket as I ran my tongue along his top lip.

"Fifteen minutes to midnight!" the deejay announced from his booth over in the corner of the room.

We ignored him and the shouts that rose up around us at the knowledge, his mouth opening to mine and his tongue snaking out and tangling with mine. His hands moved from my cheeks and threaded through my stiff hair, pulling slightly as he tilted his head to press his mouth more firmly against mine.

Everything around us seemed to fade away and it was just us. We were back in our bubble and nothing outside of it mattered. I didn't care about the people around us, I didn't care about the music pulsing, I didn't care that every time he moved one of his fingers, my sprayed and knotted hair pulled; I didn't care about anything but being back in Edward's arms.

He backed away from me, gently running kisses along my jaw as we caught our breath and clung to each other.

"How did you…?"

"Alice."

"Oh, I so owe her."

I laughed and wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my cheek against his chest as his arms wrapped around my shoulders. He rested his cheek against the side of my head, burying his nose into my hair.

"I don't think I'm ever gonna let you go," he whispered into my ear.

I tightened my arms around his waist and turned my head to press my lips against his chest through his shirt. I stood up on my toes and rested my cheek against his, my lips at his ear.

"Don't," I whispered.

He laughed and his hands were back in my hair, tilting my head up so his lips could capture mine again.

"All right, last minute request. This song goes out to Edward and Bella!"

He broke away from me and we both turned to look at the deejay booth, seeing Alice standing next to one of the speakers with her hands clasped up by her chin and a grin on her face as she bounced up and down on her heels.

She might've annoyed me more than words could possibly express the entire ride over here with talk of that damn dress and Jasper and she might've tortured me with the minimal amount of make-up I'd allowed her to slap on me at the airport, but right now, I wanted to kiss her.

She was the one that made all of this happen, after all. I probably wouldn't be standing in his arms if it wasn't for her and there was absolutely no way that I could ever repay her for it.

_"After the big parade, when all the limelight fades, I'll be the one to kiss your eyes,"_ Edwin McCain's voice floated out through the speakers and I looked up at Edward.

"Will you dance with me?" he asked, his hands moving from my hair and resting on my hips when his eyes met mine.

I nodded, reaching up and placing my hands on his shoulders, following his steps as he started to turn us in slow circles. I saw out of the corner of my eye as a lot of the people that I'd forgotten about abandoned the center of the room, shuffling over to the sides of the room or the drink table and the noise level decreased significantly.

_"The roar fades in the air like hope from a lover's prayer, the light from my heart begins to rise."_

Edward twisted his lips to the side and he pulled me tight against him, his arms circling my hips as I smiled up at him and wrapped my arms completely around his neck, not breaking our eye contact.

"Still can't believe you're here," he said softly, his hands splaying out on my back as he continued to lead us in slow circles.

"Believe it," I laughed, nodding and sucking in a deep breath.

_"And they said I couldn't love you, and that it would never last. He's just a crazy boy, just look at his past. And they said I couldn't love you, but that was just a lie. I couldn't love you more if I tried."_

"You were everywhere I looked tonight, Bella. Every brunette turned into you." He leaned down to rest his forehead against mine and breathed out a laugh. "I thought I was going crazy."

I laughed and shook my head, reaching up and threading my hands through his hair.

"And then you were _here_ and I'd been wishing so hard that you would be that I never… it didn't click until I saw you crying that it _was_ you. I'm so sorry about that."

"Shut up," I whispered, shaking my head. "It doesn't matter now."

"I never want to make you cry. I never want to see you crying over me again."

"Edward?"

"Yes?"

"Shut up," I laughed, bouncing up on my toes and pressing my lips to his again.

_"I was the lucky one, the one having all the fun. Running into the sun, the party never ends. You waited there for me, so loving and patiently. Shutting out sad words from your friends."_

"How long are you…?" he asked as he pulled away from me, his eyes closed tightly when I opened mine.

"Uhm… that's a good question. I never… I never asked Alice. I just had to get on that plane. I had to get to you," I whispered, watching as his eyes opened again.

"Yeah?" he asked, a small smile forming on his lips.

I laughed and nodded.

"You needed me."

_"And they said I couldn't love you, and that it would never last. He's just a crazy boy, just look at his past. And they said I couldn't love you, but that was just a lie. I couldn't love you more if I tried."_

The smile fell from his lips and his eyes darkened a little as he nodded once.

"And what kind of girlfriend would I be," I started, licking my lips when I felt a lump form in my throat, "if I didn't come to you when you needed me?"

_"I don't own any armor, and I might not be that brave. You might be the one I rescue, but I'll be the one you save."_

He scoffed, seeming to bite back a smile as he shook his head and licked his lips. I tilted my head at him, swallowing hard and trying to decipher what the hell _that_ meant.

"You saved me," he whispered, the corners of his mouth twitching briefly before he shook his head again. "You came all the way out here to be with me just because I needed you?"

I nodded, biting my bottom lip.

"I'm supposed to be," he choked out a laugh, "the knight in shining armor and instead… it was you."

"Are you against that?"

"What?" His eyes bulged out and he quickly shook his head. "No. Fuck no. Feel free to charge in here on a white horse at any time and hell, if you want to be completely naked while you're at it, be my guest."

I threw my head back and laughed, holding on tightly to him as he buried his face in my neck, laughing with me even as he continued to move us around in slow circles.

"I'll remember that," I laughed as I brought my head back up and rested my cheek against his ear.

"Please do," he mumbled, his lips moving slowly across my skin.

I smiled and closed my eyes as the song faded out, still moving in slow circles with him even as the next upbeat song sounded throughout the house. We continued swaying slowly for three more songs no matter what the tempo of them was, neither of us in any hurry to move from the other.

"Do you want something to drink?" he asked, finally pulling his head away from my neck to look down at me.

"Yeah, okay."

He moved his arms from my waist, framing my face in his hands and leaning down to kiss me once more. He dropped his hands and backed away, grabbing my hand and leading me to the drink table. He squeezed my hand before letting go and grabbing a Coors Light for me before choosing a Heineken for himself. He effortlessly flipped the top off of mine before doing the same to his and grabbing me around the waist again.

I laughed and wrapped an arm around his waist as well, leaning my head against his chest and sipping off the bottle. I watched as couples danced together on the floor, one seeming to always be drunker than the other and forced to help the other stand up straight. I saw Emmett on the other side of the room, leaning against a girl in a bright green dress with one of his large arms anchoring him above her. I snorted and shook my head, briefly thinking of what both Edward and Alice had said about Rosalie being the perfect match for him.

"What?" Edward asked, leaning down close to my ear and kissing my temple.

"Emmett," I laughed, motioning with my beer bottle. "And Rosalie."

"Ah," he laughed back, nodding and nuzzling his cheek against mine. "We should get them to meet sometime soon, don't you think?"

I kissed his cheek softly and nodded, shrugging one shoulder.

"Are we ready for that?"

He pulled back and grinned down at me, carefully pushing hair behind my ear with his fingertips as he kept a firm grip on the bottle.

"With you, I'm ready for anything."

I grinned back at him, stepping up on my toes and kissing him soundly, fisting my fingers in the back of his jacket. When I went to pull away from him, he turned and pressed himself against me, wrapping his other arm around me and pulling me firmly against him. I smiled, sucking his top lip into my mouth as I snaked my arm in between his and wrapped it around his waist with my other one.

"Are you two seriously going to do that all night?"

Emmett was suddenly standing by us and I briefly wondered what happened to the girl he was hovering over a minute ago until Edward's tongue danced along my bottom lip.

And then I didn't care _who_ was standing next to us. It could've been the Pope and I wouldn't have moved.

"Yes," Edward finally answered him before sliding his bottom lip in between mine and kissing me again.

"It's not even midnight yet! Let the girl breathe!"

"Past midnight in New York," I managed, tilting my head and brushing my lips over his. "And I'm breathing just fine."

I sucked his top lip in between mine again, nearly forgetting about the beer bottle I had in my hand when it slipped a little, causing me to tighten my arms around his waist as I kept my hold on it.

"How long are you staying, Bella?"

"Forever," I mumbled, smiling when I felt Edward's lips curve up into a smile as well.

Emmett huffed loudly and I didn't even care when he stole the bottle from my hand, presumably to drink it himself. He was more than welcome to it; I was a little busy at the moment.

"I've got a lifetime of _this_ to look forward to?" he grumbled.

"Yes," Edward mumbled, his hands snaking their way up my back and grabbing onto my shoulders. "Get used to it, Emmett."

"Great. First Alice and Jasper and now you two. This is some pretty depressing shit right here. I need to get laid."

I laughed at that, unable to keep it in anymore and moved my mouth from Edward's, leaning forward and resting my forehead on his chest.

"Supposed to get rid of a headache you know," he continued conversationally. "Maybe it can cure a hangover."

"Is there something you wanted?" Edward asked, turning us and looking over at Emmett as he grinned at us.

"Don't forget the ritual," he pointed with my beer bottle at Edward. "Five minutes until midnight."

"Ritual?" I asked, turning my head to rest my cheek against Edward's chest and look over at Emmett.

"Do I really…?"

"Yes!" Emmett exclaimed, standing up straight and narrowing his eyes at Edward. "We do it every year, Edward, and you're not getting out of it." Then he looked at me and grinned. "And you're doing it, too."

"What am I doing?"

"You'll find out."

He lifted the bottle to his lips and with his eyebrows wiggling at us, he walked away. Edward sighed and rested his chin on the top of my head, swaying us from side to side.

"What are we doing?"

"How's your alcohol intake?"

I backed away from him to look up and raise an eyebrow at him. He smirked and shrugged, leaning down and gently pecking my lips.

"Why?"

"Are you a lightweight?"

"Depends."

"On?"

"What I'm drinking."

"Oh, love," he laughed, leaning down and kissing me again. "You're gonna be pretty damn hammered in that case."

"Why?"

"Nine straight shots, all in a row, of Jack Daniel's."

All the air in my lungs escaped through my lips and I blinked slowly at him.

"What?" I rasped.

"We've done this since mom and dad decided that it was better for us to get piss-ass drunk at home where it was safe instead of some random friend's house. Whatever the last digit is of the new year is how many shots we take as soon as the ball drops."

"You're trying to kill me, aren't you?"

"I'd never kill you," he whispered, smiling and brushing his lips over mine again. "I wouldn't be able to survive without you."

"Nine shots?" I screeched. "I'll die!"

"I won't let anything happen to you. I promise."

I huffed, still blinking slowly at him before I tilted my head, all of what he'd said finally sinking in a little bit.

"How many shots did you do for the year two thousand?"

He laughed loudly, jerking my hips against his and leaning down to kiss me again.

"We spent the entire night doing as many shots of as many things we could come up with. I don't remember much about that night but I do remember waking up partially naked next to a very irate random girl that I'd never seen before."

I pursed my lips, fighting to hold back a smile as I imagined a very drunk Edward stumbling his way around the house.

"She said that we were almost there and then I fell asleep on her," he laughed, shaking his head and leaning down to bury his nose into my hair. "Oh, she was _pissed_."

I laughed and shook my head, taking a deep breath and rubbing my hands over his back.

"Will you do me a favor then?"

"Anything."

"As soon as I finish those shots," I whispered, turning my head to bury my face into his neck and pressing my lips against his skin, "you'll take me to bed."

"Yeah, sure," he said easily, shrugging.

"No," I whispered, pulling the bottom of his ear into my mouth and running my tongue along its edge. "You'll take me to bed, Edward."

He moaned quietly and I smiled triumphantly, nipping his ear gently before moving my mouth.

"Do we have a deal?"

"Yes," he breathed quickly, his arms tightening around my waist.

"Okay then."

"Maybe we don't need to do the shots," he mumbled, placing open mouthed kisses against my neck.

"It's your ritual; we can't just abandon it."

"They haven't lived without you for the past week and a half."

My heart fluttered and I tightened my arms around his waist again, trying to get as close to him as I possibly could.

"Two minutes, people!" the deejay announced. "Turn that television on!"

"Come on," I whispered, reaching around me and grabbing one of his hands in mine. "I want to kiss you at midnight."

He stood up straight, set the half full beer bottle on the table behind us and kissed me again, squeezing my hand as he backed away and led us back into the sea of people. We walked up to stand behind Alice and Jasper, Carlisle and Esme and Emmett as everyone else began to gather around the flat screen television mounted on the wall with Ryan Seacrest jabbering on about whatever it was he thought was important.

Esme looked over her shoulder and smiled at us, one of her arms wrapped around Carlisle's waist as she leaned against him. I smiled back at her, nestling into Edward's side as he wrapped his arm around my waist as well.

And as the ball began to drop from its perch in New York City, the countdown starting at _ten_, I looked up at Edward to find him looking down at me with a small smile on his face.

"What?" I mouthed, tilting my head.

He turned and wrapped his other arm around my waist as well, leaning down and resting his forehead against mine.

"I'm still trying to make sure that you're real," he said quietly, his lips brushing against mine as he spoke. "That I'm not just imagining all of this."

"You're not." I reached up to frame his face with my hands and shook my head. "I'm with you. I'm here and I'm with you."

"I missed you so much, Bella. I felt like…" he laughed breathlessly, closing his eyes tightly and shaking his head, "like I couldn't breathe. I wasn't myself without you."

_"Seven… six…"_

"Neither was I." I tangled my fingers in his hair and waited for him to open his eyes again. "But we're together now."

_"Three… two…"_

"I love you," he whispered, his mouth against mine as the countdown ended and _Auld Lang Syne_ blared through not only the television but the deejay's speakers as well.

I barely heard the shouts and screams and loud laughter as I moved my hands from his hair and wrapped my arms around his neck. I smiled as his arms tightened around me, his fingertips digging into my waist.

"Come on, you two! You've got all night for that!" Emmett shouted at us before grabbing one of each of our arms and yanking us apart.

"One of these days, Emmett," Edward started, glaring at him, "I'm going to kill you."

"Well it's not gonna be tonight! Come on; Jack's waiting for us in the kitchen!"

I laughed, my heart feeling lighter than it had felt in a week and a half as we let Emmett pull us along, apologizing to the drunk people that we were knocking around before we made it into the kitchen. Alice, Jasper, Esme and Carlisle were already there, obviously managing to slip by us while we were otherwise occupied and they were gathered around the surprisingly clear kitchen island, their voices raised in laughter and spirit as they waited for us.

Emmett finally let go of us and I was quick to grab Edward's hand, not wanting to be apart from him for any longer than I had to be.

"Happy New Year!" Jasper shouted, throwing a handful of metallic confetti at us as we joined them.

Was there even any confetti around to begin with?

"He's had a bit to drink," Alice laughed in apology, reaching over and picking the flaky pieces out of Edward's hair.

"Dude, we've barely been home for half an hour," Emmett snapped his fingers in Jasper's face, making him twitch and glare at him. "What'd you do? Pound some Jaeger?"

"Yes," Alice confirmed, laughing.

We all watched as Jasper started leaning more to one side than the other before Carlisle caught him, shaking his head and laughing at him as he set Jasper upright again.

"Glad I won't be the one cleaning up after him," Carlisle laughed, walking back over to Esme and standing next to her, leaning against the counter and raising an eyebrow at Edward. "Are you guys ready?"

I looked down at the lined up shot glasses in front of me and pursed my lips, looking up at Edward. He laughed at me and squeezed my hand before letting go and stripping off his suit jacket. My mouth watered as he rolled up the sleeves to his white dress shirt and loosened his tie.

"We're ready," Edward confirmed, placing both of his hands firmly on the counter and leaning over slightly to stare directly into his father's eyes. "Bring it on, old man."

Carlisle threw his head back and laughed, his perfectly styled blonde hair shaking loose slightly before he abruptly stopped laughing and leaned forward to meet Edward's gaze again in something that looked like a challenge.

"They do this every year," Alice sighed, shaking her head as she reached out and grabbed the first shot glass lined up for her. "And every year, dad's the one we have to carry upstairs."

"Jasper's not too far behind," Emmett pointed out, eyeing his own shot glasses eagerly and licking his lips. "Don't think he'll make it past the second one."

"He's sleeping in the bathroom."

I laughed and took a deep breath, grabbing my own shot glass in my hand and examining the amber liquid inside.

"I'm not putting him there," Esme stated, shaking her head as she grabbed a glass of her own. "He's all yours this year."

"I will be _fine_," Jasper finally slurred, swaying slightly as he pointed at all of us. "Gimmie dat," he mumbled, snatching one of the shot glasses off the island and spilling half of it on the floor.

"All right!" Esme exclaimed, raising her shot glass and leaning into the middle of the island.

Automatically, Edward and Carlisle relaxed and picked up one of their own, quickly raising them in the middle by Esme's hand. Edward looked over at me, grinning and reaching over to wrap an arm around my waist and pull me against him as I raised my own glass next to his. Alice eyed her husband as he stumbled against the island, his hand shaking as he raised his glass before she shook her head, laughed and raised her glass at the same time Emmett did.

"This year will be better than last," Esme started.

"Even though last year was a pretty damn good year," Edward interjected, his hand squeezing my hip.

I smiled up at him and nodded, leaning up and kissing the edge of his jaw.

"So let's drink to the start of two thousand and nine!" Esme exclaimed, clinking her glass against everyone else's.

With that, we all lowered our glasses to our lips and downed the first shot, no one stopping to breathe as we grabbed the second and continued on.

And when all of the glasses in front of everyone were empty, I barely had my glass back on the island before Edward turned to me and pressed his lips roughly against mine. I hummed against his lips and tasted the alcohol on his tongue, feeling extremely warm and a little lightheaded as he pulled me tightly against him.

"Good night, all!" he exclaimed, bending down and scooping me up in his arms. "We'll be down at some point tomorrow!"

I laughed, waving at them over his shoulder before I leaned forward and placed open mouthed kisses against his throat, my arms tight around his neck. He moaned as I moved up to the bottom of his chin, nipping lightly and holding on as tightly as I could while he ran up the stairs.

He practically threw me on the bed as we made it into his room and I laughed, bouncing on the mattress and quickly scrambling onto my knees as he slammed the door shut. He walked over to me and I grabbed his tie, pulling him close to me.

"Happy new year, Edward," I whispered, my hands quickly working the knot out of his tie.

"Happy new year, indeed," he whispered back, grinning as he grabbed my hips and pulled me against him.

Once the tie was out of the way, the buttons on his shirt became increasingly harder to see, much less poke through their respective holes to get the damn shirt open. I could only assume that he was having the same problem with the zipper of my dress, as he finally grunted and grabbed my hips again.

"Is this Alice's own little creation?" he asked, his words slurring together a bit.

"Yep."

"Then she can make another," he mumbled, his mouth hard against mine and his hands at the top of the back of the dress.

I gasped, laughing loudly as I felt him ripping the material away from my skin. I grabbed handfuls of his shirt in my hands, pulling forcefully and successfully popping a few buttons off his shirt. Not as many as I would've liked – that being _all_ of them – but it was a start.

"That was pathetic, Bella," he laughed, ripping it the rest of the way and shrugging it off of his shoulders.

"I tried!"

He fought with one of the cuffs as it got stuck on his hand and I laughed again, leaning forward and covering my face with my hands as I listened to him grunting and cursing at the shirt.

"Bella!" he laughed, holding his hand out to me as I leaned back on my heels. "Pull."

I grabbed the end of his shirt and yanked on it, tumbling backwards onto the bed when it twisted around him, came loose easily and slipped off his hand. I just laughed a little more, his shirt resting on my legs as I stared up at the moving ceiling.

"You all right?"

I looked up as I felt the bed dipping down and licked my lips when I saw him crawling over me, his hair in his face and his lips slightly parted. Whimpering, I threw the shirt away from me and sat up to grab the back of his neck and yank his mouth to mine, pulling him down on top of me.

"Never been better," I mumbled, lifting my hips as he grabbed the tattered edges of the dress and pulled it down.

We managed to get the rest of our clothes off – not without getting a small piece of Edward's boxers stuck in the zipper of his pants or fighting with the clasp on my strapless bra for a good ten minutes – and when he finally slid into me, all the alcohol I'd consumed seemed to completely disappear as I grabbed onto his shoulders and threw my head back into the mattress.

And it was only when he leaned down to press his lips softly against my collarbone and whispered _I love you_ into my ear did I finally realize that I couldn't live without him. I couldn't live without this, I couldn't live without hearing those words directly in my ear every day, and I sure as hell couldn't live with him on one side of the country and me on the other.

And damn it, I wouldn't do it anymore.


	31. Chapter 31

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**All right… honestly, I don't know how many more times I can tell you how amazing I think all of you are. I'm sure you're tired of hearing it by now but I just can't get over it.**

***points up* Over **_**twenty one hundred**_** reviews! That's… mind blowing. Completely don't know what to say to that. So thanks because I never thought I'd get passed a hundred.**

**Moving on; thank you to the lovely girls over on Twilighted (that link is now on my profile for anyone who would like to visit us!), all the people recommending this to their friends, putting this story on alert or making it a favorite and just… okay fine, all of you in general. I adore you. You have no idea.**

**I'm done. Promise.**

~*~

***Edward***

Oh. My. _Fuck._

There were little men running around inside my head with jackhammers. There had to be. This kind of pain just wasn't normal; couldn't be normal.

Even my fucking _ears_ hurt.

I opened one eye and hissed, quickly closing it again and pulling the covers over my head as the sunlight shone harshly through the still open blinds in my childhood room.

I think I'm dying. Oh, this can't be good.

I groaned and rolled to my side, right up against someone's back. My eyes popped open and I ripped the sheet off of my head, hissing in pain once again as I looked down at a very naked Bella.

The men inside of my head were still working away, shooting sharp pains directly behind my eyes but I ignored them as best I could, squinting as I threw an arm over her waist and molded myself to her sleeping form. I buried my face into the back of her neck, smiling softly as the sun completely faded from my vision and breathing her in.

She was really here. She was really in my arms, really sleeping next to me where she should always be. Last night hadn't been some alcohol induced stupor I'd gotten myself lost in. No. My life was back.

And there was absolutely no way that I would give her up. Being without her was something close to torture and to be perfectly honest, I couldn't even imagine having to go through it again.

No, fuck that; I _refused_ to go through it again. And if that meant meeting with Jeannie as soon as I stepped foot off of the plane tomorrow afternoon to tell her that I was quitting, I'd damn well do it. It wasn't worth it to live without the one person in my life that really made me feel like me again.

Bella shifted in her sleep, one of her elbows ramming back against my ribs and making me groan, the stampede of men in my head only getting that much worse as I moved in a sad attempt to make the pain lessen.

When that didn't work, I rolled onto my back and covered my eyes with my arm.

It was most definitely time for some beautiful medication before I was abused any further.

Placing my hand over my eyes, I squinted as I looked through the holes of my fingers, slowly sitting up.

Oh, yeah, no, that didn't help at all.

Whimpering pathetically, I swung my feet to the floor and stood up, blindly throwing the blankets over Bella with one hand before I bent down and groped around on the floor for the pants I'd worn last night. Finding them, I closed my eyes tightly and only ended up falling face first onto the bed as I struggled to get them over my feet.

I heard Bella groan and winced, turning my head to the side and watching as she slowly turned on her back and stretched her arms above her head.

And despite the fact that my pants were barely around my knees and the sun was only aiding in the ache behind my eyes, I smiled at her.

"Oh, fuck," she groaned, folding her arms across her eyes.

I untangled one hand from my pants and reached over to place it on her thigh, gently rubbing my thumb over the blankets covering her.

"Sorry, love," I mumbled, my voice raspy and rough.

"Mm," she mumbled, her voice just as bad as mine was as she waved me off. "Time?"

I slowly twisted around to look at the alarm clock and sighed, shaking my head.

"Nine."

She crooked one finger at me, not uncovering her eyes or moving much of anything else. Slowly – _very_ slowly – I pushed myself onto my elbows and crawled over to her, looking down at her and placing one hand on her stomach.

"Yes?"

"Kiss me and wake me up in time for dinner."

I smiled softly and pursed my lips as I remembered that she was probably beyond jetlagged at this point. And extremely hung-over.

"Can we talk then?" I asked, my fingertips making patterns on her stomach.

"'Bout what?"

"Us."

She moved her arms up a fraction and I saw that her eyes were opened into little slits.

"What about us?"

"I'm not living without you anymore, Bella," I whispered.

I watched as her lips turned up into a smile and smiled back at her, leaning down to kiss her softly.

"Go back to sleep, love. I'll be here when you wake up."

She mumbled, slowly turning onto her side to face me and curling up against the pillows. I slowly sat back and pulled the blankets over her before sliding off the bed and struggling into my pants once she'd closed her eyes again. Successful with that, I walked over to the door and pulled it open, walking towards the bathroom at the end of the hall.

I pushed that door open and blinked at the naked form of my brother-in-law asleep on the purple bath rugs by the toilet, his head resting on his bicep, his hair matted to his face and one of his hands resting over the edge of the seat.

Reaching up, I ran my hands down my face before grabbing the doorknob and pulling the door shut again. Squinting as I made my way back down the hallway, I stopped at Alice's old bedroom and proceeded to pound on the door.

That wasn't helping the workmen in my head and she'd probably come and rip my head completely off once she finally got out of bed, but the glorious little blue pills that would give the men the rest of the day off were inside the bathroom and I was _not_ picking Jasper's drunken, naked ass up off the floor. And I sure as hell didn't want to see _everything_ if I just stepped over him.

That's what he had his wife for. This was her job; not mine.

I didn't even want to know why he was naked in the first place and I didn't care enough to try figuring it out. He just needed to get out of the bathroom.

Now.

"_What_?" Alice hissed, pulling open the door and glaring at me.

"Your husband is naked in the bathroom. Please get him out so that my head will stop trying to explode."

"What the hell are you doing up so early?"

I merely pointed to my head and she rolled her eyes, pushing passed me and stalking to the bathroom. She slammed the door open and I grabbed my head in my hands as it hit the wall, the sound seeming to echo throughout the hallway.

"Jasper, you fool, get up."

I watched as she literally kicked his ass with her foot and managed to snort when he jumped and rolled on his back. I turned away, leaning back against the wall behind me and continuing to rub my temples. I heard him mumbling something and then heard her grunting. I looked up in time to see her stumbling down the hallway as she dragged him, thankfully holding a towel around his midsection.

I nodded at her as she glared at me before I turned on my heel and walked back into the bathroom. Yanking open the mirrored medicine cabinet above the sink, I snatched the bottle of Aleve and shook out four pills. Throwing two of them into my mouth and swallowing them dry, I grabbed one of the few glasses my parents kept stocked in the bathroom and filled it with water. I walked back to my room, smirking as I saw Bella curled up in the same position I'd left her in before setting the pills and water glass on the nightstand next to her. I leaned over and brushed hair off of her cheek, placing a kiss there before standing up straight and walking out of the room again, closing the door behind me.

Rubbing my face again, I took a deep breath and slowly made my way downstairs, spotting my father sitting on the couch with his head tilted back and his arms covering his eyes.

The living room was in complete chaos. Empty bottles, glasses and random decorations were scattered on the floor and any available surface, confetti that I barely remember seeing aside from when Jasper threw it at me before our shots covered the white carpet and it generally looked like we'd had one hell of a successful New Year's Eve party.

"Morning," I mumbled.

"Shut up," he groaned.

I snorted and walked into the kitchen to find my mother leaning against the counter, her hands braced against it as she stared down at the dripping coffee wearing her long red robe and the fuzzy matching slippers Alice had designed custom for her.

"Cleaning crew will be here in about an hour," she mumbled, her eyes transfixed on the carafe. "Not dealing with that."

"Sounds good."

She finally looked over at me, squinting at me.

"You're in a good mood."

"Woke up with Bella," I said, shrugging easily.

A smile flitted across her face before her eyes narrowed even further at me.

"Why aren't you hung over?"

"Oh, trust me," I laughed half-heartedly and walked around her to pull three coffee cups from the top cabinet, "I am."

"Don't act it."

"I've gotten very good at hiding a hangover when it's called for."

"Mm," she mumbled, nodding slowly before turning back to watching the coffee. "What time's your flight tomorrow?"

"Ten."

"Bella going with you?"

"I'm hoping so."

She reached over and placed her hand on my arm, squeezing slightly before dropping it back to the counter. She all but pounced on the carafe when the coffee was done and eagerly grabbed one of the cups I set down next to her. I laughed, wincing as that caused the men to come back in full force with their jackhammers.

"Gonna call in an order to the diner when everyone's up and about. You want?" she asked, reaching into the refrigerator to grab her flavored creamer.

"Yes," I moaned, grabbing the carafe from her before she could set it down. "Nothing like greasy fat food to cure a hangover."

"Damn straight." She nodded once, hissing through her teeth as she mixed the creamer in with her coffee. "Whoever thought of that stupid tradition needs to be shot."

"Think it was dad."

"Oh, Carlisle," she hissed again before turning on her heel, swaying a bit and then walking into the living room once she regained her balance.

I chuckled and set the carafe back on the burner, curling my hands around the coffee mug before following the path my mother had taken into the living room.

Yeah, my head felt like it would fall off my shoulders with one really loud noise, but I was home and for the first time since I'd gotten there, it finally actually _felt_ that way.

And it was all because of the hung over, jetlagged, gorgeous woman upstairs asleep in my bed.

I plopped onto the couch next to my father and he groaned, reaching over and smacking at my head. I held back a scream as he made contact, sending the workmen and their tools scattering around the inside of my head and reached up to grab his wrist, throwing it away from me.

"Dad."

"Too much movement," he groaned, his head still back against the couch and one of his arms still covering his eyes.

"So your solution is to smack me and create more?"

He paused.

"Yes."

I narrowed my eyes at him and picked up one of my legs, stretching over and kicking his knee. He howled in pain as he was violently shoved into a different direction, uncovering his eyes long enough to glare at me while pointing one finger in my face.

"You are not my son."

"You are not my father."

We both glared at each other until he finally sighed heavily and snatched my coffee cup away from me, sitting back into his previous position with his eyes merely closed and his hands wrapped around _my_ coffee mug.

He was lucky that he was old or I would've tackled him to the floor at that very moment. There are very few things or people who come between me and my coffee when I wake up with a hangover the size of the continental United States.

My father was walking a very thin line.

My mother sat in the armchair next to the couch, staring off at the carpet on the other side of the room with her cup raised in front of her mouth, her hands firmly grasping it and completely oblivious to anything that was going on between us.

"Bella alive?" he grumbled.

"Barely."

"Shouldn't have had her do the shots," he mumbled, lifting the mug to his lips and sipping off of it.

I glared at him again. _My _coffee.

"She probably won't be waking up anytime soon, you know."

"I'll get her up at two if she isn't up before then," I grumbled, my eyes transfixed on the mug in my father's hands.

He hummed his acknowledgment in lieu of the nod I usually got and sipped off the coffee again.

"Is she going with you tomorrow?"

"Hoping for it."

"She seems like a nice girl."

"She'll be your daughter-in-law soon enough. Now give me back," I started, huffing out a breath, "my coffee."

"Back up," my mother stated, finally choosing to focus in on the conversation between me and my father. "Daughter-in-law? Something you haven't told us, Edward?"

"Haven't gotten that far with her, mom. Dad, hand it over."

"Get your own."

"I _did_!"

"Edward Anthony Cullen."

I twitched and shrunk back against the couch, slowly looking over at my mother as she stared me down, one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows arched in my direction.

Oh I hated – more than words could properly express – when she used my full name. It _never_ meant anything good for me. It was even worse when she said it so calmly.

I glared at my father as he snickered and slowly raised the mug back to his lips, his eyes dancing and laughing at me over the rim.

"Eyes over here."

She snapped her fingers, making us all wince before she grabbed onto her coffee mug again.

"Are you two engaged?"

"No."

"But you're sure that you will be?"

"Yes."

"How are you so sure?"

"Because I can feel it," I mumbled, plucking at an imaginary string on my pants and sucking my bottom lip into my mouth. "I just know."

She nodded, wincing again and closing her eyes tightly, sucking in a deep breath.

"Then I hope you two talk about what you're going to do," she mumbled, placing her fingertips of one hand on her temple and rubbing in slow circles.

"When she wakes up."

"Okay, good."

And that was, surprisingly, that. The three of us continued to sit in the living room in almost silence; me, glaring at my father each time he sipped off the coffee mug, my mother staring off into space as she continued to rub her temple and my father sitting quietly next to me, gloating each time he took a sip.

Yeah, sure, I was more than capable of getting up to pour myself another cup. But that wasn't the point.

I wanted _that_ one.

Emmett walked down the stairs about fifteen minutes later, his head in both of his hands and his pajamas inside out and very obviously backwards. He walked into the kitchen first and came back with his own cup of coffee before plopping into the armchair across from our mother and blinking slowly at the blank television screen.

Alice and Jasper joined us twenty minutes later, neither of them looking very happy but at least Jasper had clothes on this time. He plopped down on the floor, blankly staring at the bottom of the couch while Alice shuffled into the kitchen. She came back out a few minutes later with two cups of coffee and the take out menu for the Forks Diner.

"Bella?" she asked, her voice hoarse once she'd given the second mug to Jasper and placed the menu on the coffee table in the middle of us.

"Sleeping still," I mumbled, sighing heavily at the empty coffee mug my father still held in his hands.

"Alive?"

I nodded, looking over at her and smiling softly as she sat down on the floor next to Jasper.

"Thank you."

She cleared her throat, cringing and sipping off of her coffee before leaning against Jasper's shoulder.

"I got her two tickets for the return trip." My heart twisted in my chest at the thought of her actually leaving today. "One is for eleven tonight and the other is for tomorrow morning."

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Same flight as yours, Edward," she said quietly, blinking slowly at me. "I wasn't sure."

"Thank you."

She nodded slightly before sipping her coffee and the room was once again shrouded in silence.

It was only broken when the doorbell rang throughout the house a few minutes later and we all groaned simultaneously. Emmett actually bowed over and placed his head between his knees, cursing the bastard on the other side of the door as he stared down into his coffee cup.

My father was the first one up, looking around the room at all of us pointedly before smirking slightly.

"Good way to start out the new year, don't you think?"

My mother glared at him before standing up, slapping at his shoulder, setting her mug on the coffee table and then walking over to the door that led to their master bedroom and disappearing behind it. He walked to the front door and let the cleaning crew in, the rest of us not moving as they started cleaning up the front entryway.

"Alice," I started, standing up and carefully stretching.

The men in my head had almost disappeared, only gracing me with a few sharp pains as I yawned.

"Yeah?"

"Call in the order? I'll go pick it up."

She nodded and leaned over to kiss Jasper's cheek before carefully standing up and grabbing the menu, flipping it to the back page where all of our preferences were already listed.

"Bella?"

"Cheeseburger."

She nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. Emmett finally looked up at me, his blood shot eyes squinted.

"Got you laid, didn't I?" he rasped.

I rolled my eyes, suppressing the urge to reach over and smack him as I walked around his chair and back towards the stairs.

"I did," I heard him mumble.

I rolled my eyes again and smirked, slowly shaking my head as I climbed the stairs and walked back to my room. I pushed open the door and blinked at the empty bed in front of me. Turning in a quick circle and forced to grab onto the edge of the door as I swayed, I poked my head out into the hallway to see that the bathroom door was closed.

That can't be good.

Walking back out of the bedroom, I went to the bathroom door and gently knocked on it, only to be greeted with the sounds of Bella heaving up whatever it was that might've been in her stomach yesterday.

"Bella, love?" I asked, gently tapping my knuckles against the wood again.

"Go 'way," she mumbled.

I winced as the toilet flushed, immediately followed by more of Bella as she emptied her stomach. I reached down and grabbed the doorknob, twisting it and pushing the door open. I walked in to find her wrapped in one of my bed sheets, huddled over the toilet with one of her small hands gripping the seat and her other arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

"Oh, Bella," I whispered, closing the door behind me as I sat down on the floor behind her and started to pull her hair back.

"No," she moaned, moving her hand from the toilet seat and trying to push me away. "'S gross."

"Yeah," I agreed, collecting all of her hair into one hand and reaching forward with the other to brush the back of my hand across her forehead. "But I'm not leaving."

"You don't need to see this."

"Well, this kind of is my fault," I sighed, moving my hand from her forehead to her cheek. "No more shots for you."

She groaned and I closed my eyes tightly as she lurched up onto her knees and buried her head in the toilet again. I rubbed her back in small circles, shaking my head at myself and sighing.

I was never letting her do nine shots of anything ever again. Next year, we were spending New Year's Eve in New York with her friends… where it was safer.

Twenty minutes later and one visit from Alice telling me that she'd ordered the food and that Bella's bag was in her room, Bella finally fell back against me.

"Feel better?" I asked softly, dragging my fingers through her hair and wrapping my arm around her.

"A little," she mumbled.

"Why don't you take a shower?" I whispered, leaning forward and kissing the side of her head.

"Yeah, okay."

I held out my hands, letting her place hers in them and helped her to stand up before I did the same, pushing a few stray hairs out of her eyes as she looked up at me.

"Do you still love me after this?" she rasped.

I laughed and nodded, framing her face in my hands and leaning forward to kiss her forehead.

"Always," I whispered. "I'll go get your bag from Alice's room. Come down when you're ready."

She nodded, taking one step forward to wrap her arms around my waist and hug me tightly.

"Even though that really sucked," she started, "I'm still pretty fucking happy that I'm with you right now."

I hugged her back, squeezing as tightly as I dared before pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"Me too."

~*~

"Where are we going?"

I looked over at her and smiled, grabbing her hand as we walked down the path in the backyard of my parent's house and into the woods behind it.

In an attempt to avoid any more of Emmett's snide remarks about what he supposedly _knew_ had gone on last night after we'd disappeared from the kitchen after our ritual, I'd decided that we needed to take a walk. There wasn't much snow on the ground, it wasn't _that_ cold and most of all, it was blissfully quiet out here.

Plus, we had a lot to figure out and we couldn't do it with my family members hovering around us like we were caged zoo animals.

Everyone had taken some medicine or a shower and had started to resemble human beings about an hour after we finished eating. Bella hadn't attempted to eat yet and I couldn't blame her, but hoped that she'd start to feel hungry soon. And of course, since everyone was feeling better – even if we all were still flinching at loud noises and the blinds were still drawn to keep the sunlight out – they felt it was their duty to make sure that we knew exactly what they were thinking in some form.

Between my mother's mile wide smiles at us each time we caught her eye, Emmett's remarks, Jasper's cocky grins, Alice's attempt at trying to measure every inch of Bella for some new design she probably had in mind and my father's obsession with stealing my coffee and food all damn day, we'd desperately needed some peace and quiet.

And I just needed to be with her. Alone with her for more than five damn seconds. So we'd donned sunglasses and I'd whisked her out of the house before anyone could say or do anything else to embarrass or annoy us any further.

"There's this place I go to when I want some time to myself. I want to take you there."

She smiled over at me, squeezing my hand before looking down at her feet and watching each step she took very carefully. I laughed at her, pulling her against my side and holding onto her waist tightly.

"I won't let anything happen to you."

"Tree roots!" she exclaimed, pointing. "Edward, I'm dangerous when there are tree roots around."

"All right," I said slowly, pulling her to a stop and walking in front of her. "Get on."

I bent down and turned my head to look up at her, finding her eyebrows pulled together and a pretty damn adorable pout on her lips.

"What?"

"Get on," I laughed, reaching behind me and gently grabbing her ankles. "It'll be easier."

"You're gonna get really tired really quickly."

"It's not that far from here. Come on, love." I gently pulled her ankles and laughed when she lurched forward, her hands slapping onto my shoulders to keep her steady. "Hop on."

She sighed heavily and I smiled as she wrapped her arms tightly around my neck. I stood up slowly, grabbing the back of her thighs and hitching them over my hips.

"There. See? Not so bad after all."

She huffed and buried her face into my shoulder blades as I grinned at the trees in front of us and continued the short walk to the little meadow behind the house.

I heard her gasp of surprise when we walked into the opening and turned my head to look at her as I continued to the middle of it.

"Pretty huh?"

"Gorgeous," she breathed, looking around her and slowly sliding off of my back as I came to a stop.

I smiled and grabbed her hand as she came up to stand next to me, looking around at the wide open space. There was still some snow covering the ground and the bright sunlight that we'd all been cursing for most of the day was shining down through the tree tops and illuminating everything.

This was where I'd come to think through most of high school. When I needed some peace and quiet to make a decision or just to be on my own without someone hovering over me, this was the first place I came to. And whenever I had the chance to get out of California and visit my family for a few days, I always made a trip out here.

I'd never brought anyone else here. This had always been my space and for the first time, I wanted to share it with someone else.

"Alice has two tickets for you," I started softly, looking over at her and watching as one of her eyebrows quirked up. "One is for a plane tonight at eleven and the other is for tomorrow morning at ten… to California."

She turned to look at me, her bottom lip in between her teeth.

"Come to the premiere with me, Bella," I said quietly, squeezing her hand. "Please?"

She met my eyes and grabbed my other hand in hers, pulling herself close to me.

"There's something I have to tell you."

I was pretty sure my heart stopped at those words and a million different scenarios ran through my head. None of them were at all logical given the night we'd had but it didn't stop the unnecessary fear that ran through my veins.

"Okay," I managed, swallowing hard and managing to nod.

"I vaguely remember you saying something this morning about not living without me anymore."

I nodded again.

"And that really only leaves me with one choice."

"Bella…"

"I need to go back to New York, Edward."

I flinched at her words and looked away, staring at a mound of snow behind us. I'd moved too fast; she wasn't ready for that yet.

"Okay," I said quietly, nodding and closing my eyes tightly.

"I need to go back to New York so that I can find someone that I really trust to run the bookstore while I'm not there and I need to pack my things." My head snapped back in her direction and my hands tightened around hers. "Because I'm not living without you, either."

I choked out a laugh and shook my hands out of hers to wrap my arms around her waist and lift her off the ground, pressing sloppy kisses all around her face. She laughed, her arms tight around my neck and her legs coming up to wrap around my waist.

"Can't just leave the bookstore with Jessica, huh?" I joked, squeezing her tightly as I moved to kiss her neck.

"Actually, I fired her."

I immediately stopped and pulled back from her, peering up at her.

"What? When?"

"The day after you left." She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. "And Jake's now dating Leah."

My jaw dropped.

"As in your stepsister Leah?"

She nodded and shrugged, a small giggle escaping her.

"They showed up at my father's house on Christmas and seemed to be expecting some dramatic display when I saw them. All I could do was laugh." She leaned down and rested her forehead against mine, our sunglasses brushing against each other's. "I guess they just don't realize how much I really love you."

The grin that lit up my face was probably insanely comical, but I didn't care. I kissed her again, tightening my hold around her waist.

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I wasn't thinking about any of that when I was talking to you. I blocked out everything but you."

I laughed and shook my head, my lips back on hers.

"You didn't answer my question, though," I mumbled between kisses.

"'Bout what?" she mumbled, her hands slowly and blessedly carefully threading into my hair.

"Come to the premiere with me," I breathed, hitching her up a little higher.

"Mm, oh, yeah," she nodded, shrugging easily. "I just have to call Rose or Angela and let them know."

"What about the store? Don't you need someone to have it open?"

"I'll figure it out," she shrugged it off and brushed her lips against mine.

I grinned again and captured her bottom lip in between both of mine.

"You're sure about all of this, Bella?" I asked, breaking away from her. "I can just as easily tell Jeannie that I quit and come back to New York for good."

She grabbed my face in her hands and shook her head slowly.

"No, you won't do that. You are a talented actor and I won't let you give up something that you're insanely good at and mostly love doing. It's what brought you to me," she whispered, a smirk playing on her lips. "I can open another bookstore."

"But you love the one that you have."

"I'll still love it even if I don't directly run it anymore. I'm not giving it up as much as I'm handing it over," she stated, pursing her lips before smiling brightly at me. "Got it all figured out."

"You really do," I laughed, nodding.

"Well, see, while I had my head buried in a toilet this morning, I was strangely only able to think about you and not leaving and how I was going to make it all work out in our favor."

"You think well when you're getting sick, huh?"

She laughed and shrugged, her thumbs circling my cheeks.

"Apparently."

"And your house?"

"Selling it."

She immediately bit her bottom lip and leaned back from me. I raised an eyebrow at her and set her back down on her feet, keeping my hands on her hips.

"You all right?"

"Is… is it okay if I sell it?"

"It's your house," I said slowly. "You can do whatever you want with it."

"I just, uhm," she cleared her throat and looked over my shoulder, "I didn't want to presume…"

It clicked and I grinned, pulling her back against me and bending down to bury my nose into her hair, rubbing my hands on her back as her arms wound around my neck again.

"Live with me, Bella," I whispered into her ear. "Sell your house and live with me."

She laughed and nodded, squeezing her arms around my neck and bouncing a little on her toes.

"Okay."

I smiled into her neck and breathed her in, tightening my arms around her waist and closing my eyes.

I wouldn't have to let her go now. I knew she'd have to go back to New York after the premiere, but she'd be back with me in no time.

And it'd be permanent.


	32. Chapter 32

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Adore you. All of you. Every single one of you reading this right now. You. Love you. Worship you. Think you deserve a shrine in some big-deal museum. Or somewhere like that.**

**Come join us on the Twilighted boards. I post teasers. We ogle Rob. Good time all around.**

**Sorry for the half-sentences. Between a half naked Rob and work, my brain is pretty well fried.**

**Enjoy!**

~*~

***Bella***

I dug around in the duffel bag that was five sizes bigger than I was, wondering what in the hell Rose was thinking when she packed this and where the hell she'd gotten half of the clothes I don't remember buying, in an attempt to find Edward's Christmas gift.

We'd come back from our walk to find everyone in the living room, huddled around the coffee table and playing a rousing game of Scrabble. Alice was apparently beating everyone, Emmett was getting pissed off, Esme had seemed to give up, Carlisle was hoarding his tiles in his lap and Jasper had spent a good twenty minutes trying to come up with some awesomely amazing word that no one else had ever heard of before.

Edward had been roped into it and I had used the excuse of having to call someone – anyone, really. I sucked at Scrabble – to tell them that I wouldn't be home again until the third.

And that was about the time Alice and Esme flew over to us and hugged me to within an inch of my life, jumping up and down. If this was how they acted when it was just something small like me going to his premiere, I almost didn't want to think about how they'd react when they found out that I was moving out to California to be with him permanently.

Edward had laughed at me, quickly sidestepping as Alice reached out for him and plopping down on the couch next to his father.

I'd glared at the back of his head and when I was finally allowed to move from the clutches of his female relatives, I was quick to walk over to him and fish his cell phone out of his pocket.

Emmett laughed loudly at that for reasons I didn't understand, covering his face with his hands and shaking his head. I'd merely narrowed my eyes in his direction, walked behind his chair and slapped the back of his head as hard as I possibly could before walking up the stairs and into Edward's bedroom for some peace and quiet.

I'd smiled satisfactorily to myself when I heard the rest of the room erupt into laughter and had then decided to go on a hunt for Edward's gift.

I needed to waste some major time somehow. I was _not_ getting roped into a round of that horrid game that I never really got the hang of. It didn't matter how many times I played or how many times someone tried explaining everything to me; it never stuck and I always ended the game in frustration.

Finally locating the gold bag his present was in, I pulled it out triumphantly only to jump back when something else fell out with it and landed on my toes.

Sighing heavily, I flexed my toes, digging them into the golden carpet of his room before bending down and retrieving what looked to be a photo album. The cover was maroon and had intricate, swirl details embedded into it. It was definitely something that I'd never seen before.

Setting his gift on top of the bag, I plopped onto the bed and opened the cover, a smile immediately lifting the corners of my mouth as I saw Angela's personal pictures of our night out.

I flipped through all of them, my bottom lip in between my teeth to hide the massive grin as I remembered everything that had gone on that night. We were with friends and we were having a good time; it was the first time Edward and I had gone out in public without him wearing his hat; it was the first time we'd been together. It was the night of some of our firsts in this small album and I adored it.

Reaching the last picture, I snapped it closed and walked out of the room, standing at the top of the stairs and watching as Edward triumphantly held up his hands and pointed to the word he'd just made on the board. I leaned against the railing and smiled, leaning one elbow against it and resting my head in my hand as I watched him.

He was the man I had dreamed about. He was everything I could've asked for in someone to spend my life with and more. He wasn't perfect by any means, but he was pretty damn close to the kind of perfect I'd always wanted in my life.

He looked up after a few seconds of my staring and smiled crookedly at me, nodding to the game board in front of him.

I shook my head and held up the photo album, beckoning him up the stairs with it.

"I'll be back," he stated, quickly standing up and overstepping Emmett's legs before walking up the stairs to meet me.

"What's that?" he asked, reaching up and brushing hair from my forehead.

"A little gift from Angela."

"Oh?"

I nodded and handed it to him, leaning back against the railing and watching the smile that lit up his face as he opened the cover to see the first picture. He hooked an arm around my waist, pulling me against him before flipping to the next page. I rested my head on his chest and wrapped my arms around his waist, looking at the pictures again as he flipped through them.

"We kinda owe her, huh?" he asked once he closed the album.

I looked up at him and nodded. "Yeah, I think we kinda do."

He smiled and leaned down to kiss me softly.

"I've got something for you," I said softly as he pulled away from me.

"You didn't have to get me anything."

"It's your Christmas present."

"You didn't have to get me anything," he repeated, laughing.

"Edward! Come on! It's your turn!" Emmett yelled up the stairs.

"Alice, go for me!"

"That's not fair!" Carlisle yelled.

"Then I quit!"

"Yes! More letters!" Jasper exclaimed, pumping a fist into the air.

I laughed and buried my nose into his chest, shaking my head.

"You gave me a key to your house," I stated, "it's only right that I got you something."

"That wasn't a Christmas present, Bella. I just wanted you to have it."

"Yeah, well, I don't care." I grabbed his hand and backed away from him, leading him towards his bedroom. "I want you to have this."

He sighed dramatically, dragging his feet and letting me lead him back into his bedroom.

"Have you called anyone yet?" he laughed, letting me push him onto the edge of the bed and setting the photo album next to him.

"I got distracted." I picked up the gold bag and handed it to him, biting my bottom lip. "Here."

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me into his lap, letting me get comfortable before taking the bag from me and actually throwing the black tissue paper over his shoulder. I held my breath as he pulled out the black jewelry box, pressing my lips together tightly as he brushed the bag onto the ground and opened the top.

I'd seen the infinite love pendant in one of the display windows at Kay Jewelers while Rose, Angela and I had been walking by it and had immediately thought of him. It was the way I felt for him dangling from a black leather chain and while it had seemed like a good idea at the time, now I was just damn terrified that he wouldn't understand what it meant or hell, that he wouldn't even like it.

So I kept my eyes trained on the swinging pendant as he pulled it out of the box and held it up in front of us. He didn't say anything and I closed my eyes tightly, wondering how odd it would look if I snatched it from him and asked him to forget about all of this.

"I can take it back," I blurted instead, my eyes still closed. "If you don't like it, don't worry about it. I can take it back."

"Bella…"

"Really, Edward, it's not a big deal." I laughed nervously and linked my hands together. "It's okay if you don't like it."

"Bella…"

"Honestly! It won't hurt my feelings at all. Just let me put it away…"

I opened my eyes long enough to try taking it from him, jumping when he jerked the necklace out of my reach.

"Bella."

I finally looked over at him and swallowed hard, my bottom lip back in between my teeth as my eyes met his.

"I want it."

"It's okay if you don't," I said quickly.

"Bella," he laughed, both of his hands coming up to frame my face.

The pendant landed on my chest and I sucked in a deep breath.

"It's perfect."

"Really…"

"Bella!"

I jumped again and he laughed, his lips against mine and his hands threading through my hair.

"I love it," he breathed out, kissing me again, "and I love you. I was just processing."

"What's there to process?"

"That it's possible for you to feel about me the way I feel about you."

"You ass," I laughed, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him again. "I wouldn't be moving clear across the country if I didn't feel _something_ for you."

"You're a hundred percent sure about that?" he asked, backing away from me. "I don't want you to feel like you have to. I can just as easily…"

"We've been over this and I'm not letting you quit acting. You need to be in California and I'm coming with you." I took a deep breath and reached up to place my hands on his chest. "I don't ever want to feel like I did last week, Edward and that means being wherever you are. I can open up another bookstore. You only have this chance once in a lifetime and I won't let you give that up."

His thumbs brushed along my jaw and he smiled softly, tilting his head at me.

"How'd I get so lucky?" he whispered.

"Just one of those things, I guess," I shrugged, grinning at him.

He laughed and kissed me again, pulling me with him as he lay back on the bed and moved his hands from my hair to wrap his arms around my waist. I straddled his lap, anchoring my hands on each side of his head as I slid my tongue into his mouth.

"Okay, now I understood you sucking each other's faces off last night but do you have to do it today, too?"

We both turned to see Emmett standing in the doorway of the bedroom, his arms crossed over his broad chest and one of his eyebrows raised in our direction.

"Emmett," Edward hissed.

"Hey! What's that?"

I laughed as he walked over to us and snatched the photo album from the bed, plopping down and lying next to us. Edward groaned and I giggled, shaking my head and burying my nose into his chest.

"I thought you were playing Scrabble?"

"Alice kicked my ass. Who's the blonde?"

I picked my head up and smirked down at Edward before sitting up and looking down at the album in Emmett's hands. It was the picture that Angela had taken of the three of us on the stairs at the Tavern, the one where Rosalie was flipping her off.

"That would be my best friend Rosalie."

Edward sat up as well, quickly fastening the chain around his neck before wrapping his arms around me again. I smiled and reached up to run my finger over the pendant, tapping my finger against his throat when I reached the bottom. He smiled at me and kissed me quickly.

Emmett nodded as he slowly sat up with us, pursing his lips as he casually flipped to the next picture. I grinned at Edward and leaned forward to rest my cheek on his chest, my hands gripping onto the edge of his t-shirt and tangling it in my fingers.

"Is she seeing anyone?"

"No one serious."

He nodded again, humming as he continued to flip through the pages.

"So, Emmett," I started, sitting up straight again and winking at Edward.

He rolled his eyes and laughed, squeezing my waist and leaning forward to bury his nose into my shoulder.

"Yeah?"

"I'm moving to California."

Emmett looked over at me quickly, both eyebrows up in the middle of his forehead in surprise and the photo album almost completely forgotten as his mouth dropped open a little.

"No shit?"

I nodded and Edward turned his head to look at his brother with a knowing smile on his face.

"And I'm gonna need some help moving all of my things and getting everything packed. Edward's, obviously, gonna be pretty busy when he gets back and won't be able to fly out with me. So I was wondering, if you're not working or too busy or anything, if you'd like to come help me?"

"Yeah, sure, that's cool."

I nodded again, listening as Edward snorted and kissed the bottom of my chin.

"Thanks."

"Not a problem. Just let me know what airport I need to be at and what time you'll be getting there so that we can, you know, coordinate shit." He shrugged one shoulder before going back to the photo album. "It'd be cool to get out of Washington for a while."

"Mhmm," Edward mumbled. "Hey, you need to call someone."

He looked up at me and I nodded, huffing slightly before climbing off his lap and grabbing his phone from where I'd left it on the night stand.

"I'm just gonna… go… show these to Alice," Emmett stated, taking off out of the room before either of us could say anything.

"Fuck," Edward mumbled, standing up and quickly pecking my cheek before running after him. "Emmett, Alice is down_stairs_!"

I laughed, shaking my head as I punched in Rosalie's house number and plopped back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling as I listened to the line ring.

It was nice to see that Edward's family hadn't changed the way they acted around him. He was still their son and brother and it didn't make a difference to them that he was on every damn magazine cover known to man on a weekly basis.

And to be perfectly honest, I couldn't wait to be a part of their family.

~*~

"Oh my _God!_"

I lurched up off the mattress, blinking rapidly into the darkness of the room and looking up to find Alice standing at the foot of the bed with something in her hands, the light from the open doorway shining directly into my eyes.

"What is your _problem_, Alice?" Edward mumbled sleepily from beside me.

I looked over at him and furrowed my eyebrows, shaking my head and reaching up to rub my eyes.

Okay, obviously, I'd fallen asleep after I'd made all my phone calls this afternoon. I remember talking to Rose and asking her what I should do about the bookstore for the day. I remember her saying something about calling my father because he was apparently freaking out that I hadn't been answering the phone, completely avoiding giving me an answer to my bookstore question. I remember calling Angela to thank her for the album and promising her the lights she'd been wanting for her studio in the near future. I remember talking to my father, calming him down and then suddenly talking to Sue and accepting the offer she'd extended about opening the bookstore for me tomorrow.

I don't, however, remember falling asleep. Hell, I don't even remember hanging up the phone. I don't remember Edward crawling into the bed with me, which he'd very obviously done.

After everything was packed and I was out in California, I wasn't making any return trips to New York anytime soon if this is what the jetlag caused.

"My dress!" Alice squeaked, still staring down at her hands.

I groaned and flopped back onto the pillow behind me, turning on my side and burying my nose into Edward's shoulder. He sighed and wrapped his arms around me, turning on his side as well and pulling me close to him.

"I'll pay for it," I grumbled, one of my hands fisting into his shirt.

"It's my fault," Edward mumbled, yawning. "I'll pay for it."

"Shut up." I pinched him and he growled, his fingers digging into my ribs. I tried rolling away from him and he held me tighter, his hands still on my sides. "I'll pay for it, Alice."

"You… you shredded it," she whined and I was sure I heard her stomp her heel into the carpet. "How did you get it…? Wait. I don't even want to know. Never-freaking-mind."

"Good choice, Alice," Edward mumbled and I could hear the smile in his voice.

I heard her sigh heavily and smiled, burying my nose into his chest again.

"Neither of you have to pay for it. It was the reaction we were all hoping for to begin with so…"

"You think about my sex life often?" Edward grumbled.

"Only when you're bitchy. Which you were. Moving on," she stated, apparently over the torn dress. "We're taking you two out to dinner before you leave tomorrow so get up and get ready."

"Where are we going?"

"La Bella Italia."

"When?"

"Dad made reservations for eight."

"What time is it now?"

"Six-thirty."

"Thanks for the head's up, Al," he grumbled.

"Hey, I could've woken you up at five of and told you to get ready." Then she grabbed my ankle and pulled. I shrieked, grabbing onto Edward as she managed to pull me halfway off the bed before letting go. "Do you have anything to wear to the premiere tomorrow?"

"Alice, leave her alone," Edward groaned.

"Yes, Alice, leave her alone," I begged, trying to claw my way back up the bed.

"Seriously, Bella," she sighed heavily, grabbing onto my ankle again to keep me in place.

For such a short, tiny little person, she sure had a lot of strength. I sighed heavily and turned on my back, opening my eyes again to look down at her.

"I honestly don't know all of what I have. Rose packed my bag and I haven't really had a chance to look at anything closely."

"You didn't have any nice dresses so I know for a fact that you don't have anything to wear."

I blinked at her.

"Then what in the hell did you ask me for?"

She shrugged innocently, finally letting go of my ankle to clap her hands excitedly.

"Shits and giggles."

I groaned and threw my head back onto the mattress.

"Alice, get to the point," Edward sighed. "If you want us to get up and get ready, then you really need to get on with it."

"Fine," she sighed heavily. "Party pooper."

"Mhmm, sure. Go on."

"I brought a few dresses over the other night that you could pick from if you'd like."

"Always prepared, aren't you?"

"Works out better that way," she said brightly. "So when we get back, I'll show them to you and you can choose one."

"Fine," I mumbled, waving her off and crossing my arm over my eyes.

"Great! Now get up."

With that, she walked out, slamming the door behind her. Groaning, I turned and crawled my way back up the bed, falling next to Edward and brushing the end of my nose against his. He smiled and slowly opened his eyes, one of his hands coming up to smooth down my hair.

"Hi," he whispered.

I smiled and rested one hand on his side, brushing my thumb over his stomach.

"Hi," I whispered back.

"Did you sleep well?"

"I was pretty content until your sister decided that we needed to be up and about."

"That's usually the way she is." He smiled softly and moved his hand from my hair to run his knuckles down my cheek. "Have I told you how happy I am that you're coming with me tomorrow?"

"No, but I can relate."

"I love you, Bella."

I grinned and curled my fingers in his shirt, pressing myself against him and brushing my lips against his.

"I love you too."

He leaned in, his lips soft on mine before he drew my top lip in between both of his. I sighed happily, shifting and throwing my leg over his hips. I smiled when I heard the low moan sound from the back of his throat and ran my tongue along his bottom lip.

"I think we're gonna be late," he whispered, kissing down to my neck.

I tipped my head back and reached up to tangle my fingers in his hair, nodding.

"Yeah, I think so, too."

"I was sent up here to – whoa!"

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Edward groaned into my ear, pressing his forehead against my shoulder as I sighed heavily and looked over at Jasper standing in the doorway.

"I didn't… should've known, but didn't. Fucking hell. Alice!" he bellowed down the hallway, quickly stepping out of the room. "Sorry, guys. Mary Alice Whitlock!"

And with that, he slammed the door shut and we both listened to his retreating footsteps. He looked up at me and sighed heavily, shaking his head.

"Sorry."

"Don't be," I smiled, pushing my hand through his hair and kissing him once more before rolling onto my back.

He moaned unhappily, tightening his grip around my waist and pulling me back to him.

"Don't go yet."

"Someone else will undoubtedly be up here again soon, you know."

Just as I finished speaking, we heard another set of footsteps approaching the door and I sighed, crossing both of my arms over my eyes as I waited for the door to open again.

Edward groaned again and finally let up on his hold around my waist, turning slightly and burying his head into the pillow.

"This is fucking insane," he mumbled.

I laughed and nodded.

"I'm hungry! Get up!" Emmett yelled, the door swinging open once again.

"We're getting there."

"Not fast enough."

I screamed when I felt his arms underneath me, lifting me off the bed and quickly carrying me out of the room.

"Emmett!" I screamed, gripping his shoulders tightly as he laughed loudly and walked into the bathroom.

He set me down, grinned and then slipped out, slamming the door behind him. I closed my eyes and shook my head, reaching up to run my hands through my hair.

"Emmett! Was that really necessary?" I heard Edward's annoyed voice on the other side of the door and smirked.

"I'm fucking hungry so yes, yes it was."

"Bella, are you all right?"

"What? Do you think I'd actually hurt her somehow? Give me some credit, bro."

"You do realize that you're ten times bigger than she is, don't you?"

They were both quiet and I pressed my lips together to hold in my laughter, still shaking my head.

"Bella?" Emmett asked quietly. "You all right in there?"

"I'm fine," I snorted, running my hands down my face and sighing. "Now both of you go away. I'll be out in a few minutes."

"You bruised her and I'll kill you," I heard Edward say to him.

"Oh, I didn't bruise her you overprotective ass. She's perfectly fine; she said so herself."

"Probably because she's in shock at being manhandled by my _brother_."

"I didn't manhandle her!"

"I'm fine!" I yelled, laughing and pounding the heel of my hand on the door. "Seriously; go downstairs or something. I'll be there in a minute."

I heard their retreating footsteps and laughed again, shaking my head as I walked over to the sink and flipped the water on.

Well, if anything, my life would never be boring with his family around.

~*~

"Okay, okay, all right!"

We all looked up from laughing at one of Emmett's entertaining stories about some antics pulled on the football field to find that Esme was standing up with her water glass in her hand.

We'd gotten a private booth in the corner of the restaurant per Carlisle's request and obvious bribe to the hostess standing up front so that we wouldn't be bothered throughout dinner and all we'd done was make noise and disrupt everything anyway.

It was very hard to take all of the Cullen's out without making a big deal about it. Emmett alone was enough to make a scene, but when you add in Alice's excited high-pitched giggling, Edward's noticeable voice, Esme's scolding for all of us to keep our voices down and Carlisle's boisterous laugh, it was damn near impossible to be discreet.

But there hadn't been anyone to approach the table and we'd been able to eat and enjoy ourselves in relative peace. There were the looks from a few other patrons that had noticed Edward and maybe even recognized Emmett or Alice, but no one had come up to them.

Something that we were all very thankful for. It was Edward's last night in town and while no one had said anything about it, it was plainly obvious that his family wanted to spend as much time with him as possible before we left tomorrow morning.

"I want to make a toast," she said, smoothing her free hand down her shirt.

Everyone lifted his or her water glasses – because alcohol was _clearly_ out of the question for the night – and I dropped my free hand on Edward's leg, smiling as he placed his hand on top of mine and twined our fingers together.

"To my beautiful children, who have all followed their dreams and become exactly what they wanted to be. Your father and I are so proud of all of you."

"Here, here," Emmett boomed, raising his glass up a little higher.

I looked over at him and rolled my eyes, folding my bottom lip into my mouth to hold back the laughter that wanted to come forth. He couldn't just enjoy a few nice words from his parents without having to add his two cents.

"And to Jasper and Bella," she continued.

My eyes widened and I started a little bit in my chair, biting down hard on my bottom lip when Edward squeezed my hand at the motion.

"Who have put up with my daughter and my son with perfect ease and have worked themselves into their busy lives with such grace that it has made us all question if the two of you are really human. Thank you."

I could feel my face heating up and I swallowed hard, nodding stiffly as my thanks and lowering the water glass to my lips as Esme sat back down. The roar around the table started up again as Emmett quickly picked up from where he'd left off in his story. Edward leaned over, his lips against my ear as he squeezed my hand again.

"Come outside with me?" he whispered.

I nodded and he quickly excused us, grabbed my coat from the back of my chair and helped me into it before he grabbed his own. He grabbed my hand again when we were both bundled up and we made our way through the mostly deserted restaurant. We made it outside and he dragged me around to the side, hidden by shadows just in case.

"Everything all right?" I asked softly, reaching up with one hand to brush my knuckles across his cheek.

"Are you _sure_ this is what you want, Bella? You want to come live with me in California? Because you don't have to. I'm more than capable of giving it all up for you. I'll call Jeannie right now if you want me to."

I fought with the urge to sigh heavily and start banging my head back against the side of the restaurant.

"Do _you_ want me there?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then stop questioning me," I whispered, wrapping my arms around his neck and pressing myself against him. "My home is with you and you need to be in California. So I do, too."

"We can make a different home in New York, Bella. We don't _have_ to do it in California."

"Your job is there and it's a hell of a lot more important than mine. Yes," I said quickly when he opened his mouth, "I love the bookstore and it was one of my original reasons for not coming with you in the first place. But you know something?"

"I know a lot of things, Bella, but apparently I have _no idea_ what you're ever thinking."

I grinned and twisted my fingers in his hair.

"I did a lot of talking with my friends and even my father while we were apart and they all told me one thing."

"What was that?" he asked, almost sounding exasperated when I paused and placed his hands on my waist.

"To follow my heart," I said softly, biting my bottom lip. "And my heart is yours so… I'm following you."

He blinked at me, his fingertips digging into my waist and his face expressionless. I sucked in a deep breath as I stood my ground and waited for him to say something.

"Bella," he finally breathed before his lips were on mine and his arms wound tightly around my waist.

"So stop," I said as I pulled away, "doubting me. And let me be with you."

He brought his hands up, framing my face and brushing his thumbs over my cheeks as he smiled down at me.

"Okay," he whispered, leaning down and kissing me softly once more. "Okay."

"We should tell them; your family."

"We might not make it out of there alive. They'll either be really excited about it or we'll get the third degree and wish we were dead."

I smirked and stepped up to him, completely pressing myself against him once again and nudging the tip of his nose with mine.

"So you better damn well kiss me and mean it, Edward, because if I'm dying for you, I want it to be worth it."

He laughed and moved his hands from my face to grab me around the waist again, his lips forcefully against mine while I suddenly found my back pressed against the side of the building.

"How am I doing so far?" he breathed, backing away slightly before his lips were on mine again.

I hummed in response and tightened my hands in his hair, opening my mouth to his and tangling our tongues together.

We stood there for a while longer, kissing and laughing and just being alone with each other until I shivered from the cold and Edward immediately whisked me back into the restaurant. Everyone looked up as we walked in, their faces red from laughter.

"You two okay?" Carlisle asked, leaning back in his chair and raising an eyebrow at us.

"Just needed some air," Edward said, nodding as he helped me out of my coat.

"Is that what you're calling it now?" Jasper asked, grinning over at us as he twirled his fork around on his empty plate.

Alice smacked his chest with the back of her hand and he dropped the fork, a gust of air leaving his lungs as he coughed and reached for his water glass. I smiled and nodded my thanks at her before sitting down in the chair Edward pulled out for me. She winked at me and reached for her own glass, eyeing her husband as he continued to cough. Edward sat down again, looking sympathetically at Jasper and slowly shaking his head.

"I'm buying you a different ring," he wheezed, sipping off the water and scooting his chair closer to Esme's.

"Rather fond of this one."

"We know," Emmett and Edward muttered at the same time, both of them rubbing the center of their chests and staring down at the table like lost puppy dogs.

I laughed and placed my hand back on Edward's knee, slowly drawing patterns on it with my fingertip as he turned to me. He smirked at me and cleared his throat, his hand covering mine once again.

"So we have news," he started once everyone's attention was on us.

"You're pregnant!" Emmett blurted out, pointing at me.

"You're engaged!" Esme exclaimed, sitting up straight in her chair looking between the both of us excitedly.

"You're already married?" Jasper asked cautiously, leaning away from Alice as she raised an eyebrow at him.

"It's not… that big," Edward sighed, shaking his head and reaching up with his other hand to run it through his hair. "You guys can't just start with the small stuff, can you?"

"I'm moving to California," I said before anyone else could come up with anything more, highly amused at all of their guessing.

Emmett flopped back into his chair, clearly disappointed as he crossed his arms over his chest and pouted at me.

"Already knew that."

"Permanently?" Carlisle asked, reaching forward to grab his water glass.

I nodded, turning my hand over and linking my fingers with Edward's underneath the table.

"It's what makes the most sense."

"Then we're very happy for you," Esme smiled, the excitement not fading from her eyes as she reached over and grabbed onto Carlisle's arm. "As long as it's what you both want."

I smiled and looked over at Edward, squeezing his hand. He returned the gesture, nodding and leaning over to kiss me once.

"Yeah," he said softly. "It is."

I grinned and probably would've started bouncing in my seat at his final acceptance of all of this if it wasn't for Alice launching herself at me and hugging me tightly for the second time that day.

"Thank you," she whispered into my ear.

Keeping one hand in Edward's, I wrapped the other around her back and hugged her just as tightly.

"Thank _you_."

She leaned back to loudly kiss my cheek before she sat back down and once again lifted her water glass in a toast.

"To Edward and Bella."

And once everyone had tapped their glasses against everyone else's, conversation picked up, crazy stories were resumed and I looked over at Edward again. He was looking back at me and leaned over when I caught his eye, his lips against my ear as he whispered, "I love you." I closed my eyes, smiling like an ass and biting my bottom lip as I squeezed his hand again.

Here, in this moment, sitting with him and the family that had easily accepted me into their lives, I felt like I was finally able to start _living_ again. After being in the dark for so long in a relationship that was more of a convenience than anything else, it was really nice to feel like I'd finally found a place where I belonged.

I belonged with Edward and that was never going to change.


	33. Chapter 33

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**So **_**finally**_** here's the premiere. Well, some of it. The important part that you're all waiting for. I think.**

***shakes head* Anyway, thank you guys so very much. You make me all sorts of giddy when I get your reviews or alerts or PM's. Seriously; it's pretty damn funny. Seven in the morning and I'm prancing around the house like I just won the Pulitzer or some shit.**

**So come hang out at the Twilighted boards (link on my profile) if you feel so inclined. Teasers, pictures of Rob and fun times all around.**

**And if you're interested, there's a picture of the necklace - well, the charm at least - that Bella gave to Edward in the last chapter posted on my LiveJournal. Link for that is on my profile as well. :)  
**

**As always, thanks to everyone recommending me and letting other people know that this story exists. You're all ten different shades of awesome and I couldn't ask for better readers.**

**Oh, and uh... part of this is NSFW or school.  
**

**Enjoy!**

~*~

***Edward***

"It's going to be crazy out there," I started, looking over at Bella as she brushed her fingers through her hair absently while we waited to get off the plane.

"I know," she stated, looking over at me and smirking.

"They're going to be everywhere, Bella. You can't let go of me."

She dropped one of her hands from her hair and reached over, sliding her hand into mine and linking our fingers together.

"I won't."

"Jeannie said that there will be a limo waiting for us, but we have a lot to get through just to get there."

She huffed and leaned over, her free hand coming up behind my head and pulling my face close to hers. Our noses brushed and she looked directly into my eyes.

"Edward," she said softly, "I _know_."

"Bella, I don't think you do," I said, exasperated. "We're gonna be attacked by photographers and asked ten thousand questions and…"

I stopped when one of her hands reached up and tugged on the pendant hanging around my neck. My mouth snapped shut and I licked my lips, sighing heavily.

"You won't let anything happen to me," she said quietly, leaning her forehead against mine. "I won't let go of you. I'll be fine."

"I'm just worried."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"Shut up," I grumbled, smirking at her.

She smiled and kissed me quickly, letting go of the pendant and trailing her hand down my chest before sitting back in her seat.

The morning had been hectic. My parents had driven us to the airport after we'd completely combed through my entire room to make sure that we had everything. Emmett had nearly choked Bella to death while hugging her goodbye, Alice had almost broken down into sobs like she wasn't going to see her for the next fifty years, Jasper had twirled her around a few dozen times just for the hell of it and I was positive that my mother never wanted to let go of her even though she'd be saying goodbye to us at the airport in about an hour. My father was the only normal one, waiting until we got to the airport before merely hugging her and kissing her forehead and then clapping me on the shoulder with a _"Call us soon, son." _My mother, however, had once again latched onto the both of us and nearly made us late.

Nevertheless, we'd made the flight with seconds to spare. A few people had come up to me with their cocktail napkins so that I could sign them during the flight, but that had been it and I was thankful.

I'd tried preparing Bella for the chaos the entire two hour flight, but all she'd said was that she knew. And the more she said that she knew, the more frantic my thoughts became because she _didn't_ know. Being in my life had already drastically changed hers, but at least when she was at home in New York, she was relatively safe. A few paparazzi staking out her bookstore was _nothing_ compared to what she was going to have to deal with when she merely walked outside of my condo to get the damn mail or God forbid get some fresh air into her lungs.

And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to call Jeannie and tell her that I was quitting no matter what Bella had said before. If I could shield her from any of what she'd be dealing with in a matter of hours, I'd do anything to make sure of it. She didn't deserve the scrutiny she'd be under all hours of the day; that wasn't her world, it was mine and she didn't have to be a part of this.

"Bella…" I tried again, squeezing her hand.

"I swear to God, Edward," she started, looking over at me and narrowing her eyes, "if you tell me one more time about what I don't understand, I will never touch you again."

I pressed my lips together into a tight line and huffed, turning to look at the front of the plane and pout a little.

That wasn't fair by any means.

She sat up, grabbed my chin in her hand and made me look back at her.

"You have to trust me," she said softly. "I know what's waiting out there for us. I know that my life is never going to be the same after tonight. But I also know that you're going to be right there with me and that makes it okay. So trust me, damn it, because you're driving me nuts."

I smirked as much as I could and leaned forward to press my pursed lips against hers.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled as her hand fell to her lap when I backed away. "I just want you to be aware of everything that's going to happen."

"You've informed me pretty well, Edward. And it doesn't matter to me. _You_ matter to me."

I sucked in a deep breath and nodded slightly, leaning forward and kissing her again.

"I'll keep you safe."

"I know." She smiled and reached up to quickly comb her fingers through my hair. "I have no doubts."

We were finally allowed off the plane a few minutes later and I waited until most of everyone had filed out before I pulled my laptop bag out of the overhead compartment and grabbed Bella's hand again. I kept her close to me as we walked down the terminal and into the airport, heading straight to baggage claim.

Once we'd grabbed my suitcases and her duffel bag, I held my elbow out to her and watched as she looped her arm around mine, smiling brightly up at me.

"You ready?"

"Yes."

I leaned down and kissed her forehead before quickly walking toward the lobby. The text I'd gotten from Jeannie while we were in the air had given me a detailed description of the limo driver and even the license plate number. I didn't even want to know how she'd gotten all of that information so quickly, but it was very convenient. The less time we had to linger around outside, the better.

I didn't want them screaming questions at Bella, or maybe even hurling insults at her like they'd done on occasion to me just to get a rise out of me and make me lose my temper. Apparently, those pictures would've been worth my weight in gold.

"Here we go," I mumbled to myself, walking into the mass of people near the exit.

It took all of five seconds to have a circle of photographers around us, snapping pictures and calling out my name as we walked. I felt Bella's other hand come up to twist around my forearm and clenched my jaw, smiling tightly.

"How were your holidays, Edward?"

"Fine, thank you," I answered quietly, nodding and looking over their heads to see that we were almost at the doors.

"Are you ready for the premiere tonight?"

"As ready as I can be."

"Is this your girlfriend?"

I felt her hand tighten around my arm and merely nodded, still doing my best to smile at them while walking as quickly as possible and wanting to tear their heads off one-by-one.

Fuck, we needed to get out of here.

"Bella! Bella, look over here!"

_Now_.

They followed us outside and I stood up on my toes, searching for the license plate number to the limo Jeannie had waiting for us. Spotting it, I dragged Bella down the sidewalk, nodding at the driver as he stood at the trunk and impatiently waited for him to open it.

The photographers were on the sidewalk, far enough away from the limo as we quickly shoved our luggage into the trunk and dove for the door. Bella smiled nervously at the driver, offering a small _thank you_ before she crawled in and slid to the other side of the seat.

"See you tonight, Edward!"

I waved at them, offering another smile before I slid in next to Bella and yanked the door closed. I threw an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against me and running a hand down her hair.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine."

I leaned forward and looked at her face, grinding my teeth as I reached in to my pocket and grabbed my cell phone.

She was not _fine_. She looked fucking terrified. Because of _my_ life and the shit _I_ had to deal with on a daily basis.

We both looked up when the driver climbed into the front seat and rolled the partition down, his faded brown eyes meeting mine in the rear view mirror.

"Where to, mister Cullen?"

I gave him the address to my building and leaned back in the seat as the tinted window separating us rolled back up, turning my cell phone on as I kept Bella close to me, my hand still smoothing down her hair and my heart still beating ninety miles an hour in my chest.

"Bella, you're not _fine_," I finally said as I felt the car start to move.

She looked up at me, placing one of her hands on my chest and pursing her lips.

"I'm in one piece, am I not?"

"You're not _fine_," I insisted.

"Edward, it's a _lot_ to take in and it's a _lot_ different than New York. You need to give me a minute to get used to this."

I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes, nodding as I placed my phone on the seat next to me and reached up to grab her other hand in mine, lacing my fingers through hers.

She was right. New York was our little slice of solitude and it had been very easy to forget that Bella didn't know the extent of what happened when I stepped foot into LAX airport. I just needed to give her a little time to adjust to it all.

"It'll be more controlled tonight, Bella. They have a line that they can't cross and they can only follow us as far as the theater entrance."

"All right."

I opened my eyes to look down at her and saw her smiling slightly at me, her thumb rubbing over the back of my hand.

"We don't have to go the after party if you don't want to."

"And if I want to?"

"We don't have to."

She raised an eyebrow at me and immediately dropped my hands, moving from the space beside me to the seat across from me, crossing her arms over her chest and tilting her head at me.

"Okay!" I exclaimed, quickly launching myself over to her again and winding my arms around her shoulders. "We'll go if you want to!"

I threw my legs over her lap just for good measure and began noisily kissing the side of her head. She laughed and I smiled as her arms wrapped around my waist, leaning down and gently pressing my lips to her cheek.

"I'm on your turf now, Edward. You have the upper hand and I don't want you to drastically change your lifestyle just because I'm here. You had a life before me and now I want to be a part of it." I pulled back from her and moved one arm from her shoulders to stroke her cheek. "Don't change anything for me."

"But my life _has_ drastically changed because of you," I whispered, trailing my thumb over her bottom lip. "_I've_ changed because of you."

"Is that a good thing?"

I smiled and nodded, taking her chin in between my thumb and forefinger and leaning down to press my lips to hers.

"You have no idea."

"Just don't change everything too much, all right? I'm gonna be right here with you no matter what. You're not getting rid of me now, Edward Cullen."

I grinned and wrapped her tightly in my arms again, burying my face into her neck.

"I don't want to," I whispered, shaking my head.

She pressed her lips against my shoulder as her hands slowly moved up and down my back, managing to completely calm me down and have me nearly asleep in her lap after a few minutes.

I didn't notice when the car stopped moving; I only noticed when Bella's hands stilled on my back and she started pulling away from me. I tightened my hold on her and heard her laugh, smiling sleepily into her neck.

"I think we're here," she said softly, her lips pressing into my shirt. "Maybe you should go inside and get some sleep?"

"Mm," I mumbled, shaking my head before slowly sitting up straight and yawning. "Can't sleep. There's a lot to do."

I moved my legs from her lap and leaned back, kissing her forehead before moving my arms from around her and stretching out as much as possible.

"What does getting ready for a premiere entail?"

I looked over at her, dropping my arms into my lap and listening as the driver door slammed shut.

"Well, Jeannie will probably be here in," I looked down at my watch and sighed, "an hour and a half with her arms full of suits for me to try on, directions on what time we need to be there, complaints about everything I've done or haven't done and then we'll be in another limo at around five-thirty."

She blew out a breath, her cheeks puffing out as she nodded and wiped her hands on the legs of her jeans. I reached over and squeezed her knee as the door opened and sunlight poured in the cab. I let her get up and out first before grabbing my cell phone off the seat, joining her and nodding to the driver who already had our bags sitting on the front steps of my building.

"I'll see you both in a few hours."

"Jeannie roped you into all day, huh?" I smirked, grabbing Bella's hand as he closed the door behind us.

"That woman terrifies me, sir." He nodded, smirking. "See you then."

I snorted and shook my head as I led Bella toward the entrance, looking around and thankful that I didn't see anyone hiding in the bushes with a camera lens poking out of them. Breathing out a sigh of relief, I handed her duffel bag to her before grabbing my own suitcase handles and walking through the automatic doors.

The lobby hadn't changed at all. There were still potted plants in every corner, the red and gold rug leading to the elevators at the other end of the room didn't look like anyone had ever walked on it, framed photographs of the Hollywood sign and the nightlife littered the walls and even better than the familiar sight of my second home, was the fact that no one was lingering around. It was peaceful and everything I'd hoped for when looking at places to live a few years ago.

"Damn," Bella breathed.

I looked over at her and smirked as we made it to the elevator banks, watching as she looked around and shifted her bag on her shoulder.

"This is just the beginning, love," I said quietly, dropping one handle of the suitcases and punching the button to take us up.

"Huh."

One of the elevator doors opened and I pulled her on, pressing the button for the fourth floor and leaning against the back wall as we started moving. She leaned against me and I smiled, reaching over and draping an arm around her shoulders.

"You like it so far?"

She nodded, turning and resting her chin on my shoulder. I leaned in and kissed her softly, swallowing hard when one of her hands came around to begin tugging on the bottom of my t-shirt. I let go of the other suitcase handle, turning and pressing her against the back wall of the elevator. Framing her face with my hands, I pressed my lips more firmly against hers as her hand slid underneath my shirt and easily flicked open the top button on my jeans. I breathed out a small moan, sliding my tongue into her mouth and threading my hands back through her hair.

It was amazing how this woman could make me forget everything that didn't have to do with her. I didn't remember my own name, I didn't remember that we were in an elevator, and I definitely didn't remember that we were back in California.

And I didn't care. It was nice to be with my family and spend time with them and it was even nicer that Bella had joined us, but I'd missed _this_. While New Year's Eve night was great, we'd been a little more than half drunk and we hadn't been allowed enough time on our own to be with each other like I wanted to be with her now.

I heard the elevator doors sliding open and groaned unhappily as I backed away from her. She giggled and I shook my head, smirking over at her as I grabbed the handles of my suitcases and quickly led us out and down the long hallway.

I cursed as I reached my door, forced to bend down and unzip one of the pockets to search for my keys, nearly ripping the zipper off in the process.

"Easy there, tiger," I heard Bella mumble, one of her hands coming up to rub my back. "I'm not going anywhere."

My heart jumped in my chest and half the blood in my brain quickly disappeared into my groin as I wrapped my fingers around my keys. No, she wasn't going anywhere. She was staying with me. She was going to be living with me and making her life here with _me_.

And the inevitable separation we'd be dealing with tomorrow didn't feel as horrible as the one on the twenty-second had because I knew that she would be coming back to me. She'd be back with me as soon as she got everything cleared up at home and she'd finally be here to _stay_. We'd be together every day and I couldn't be any fucking happier about it.

Standing back up, I jammed the key into the lock and all but kicked the door open, shoving my suitcases inside and impatiently waiting for Bella to follow me in. She already had her duffel bag on the floor when I grabbed the keys and slammed the door behind her, shaking her hair back and making my mouth water as I flipped the lock.

"Are you going to give me the grand tour?" she asked, smirking at me.

"No," I said, slowly taking a step toward her and placing my hands on her waist as I dropped my keys in the bowl by the door.

"No?"

I turned her around and pressed her up against the door, smiling as she laughed and placed her hands on my shoulders.

"Maybe later," I mumbled before my lips were on hers.

She hummed against my lips and ran her hands down my chest, stopping at the bottom of my t-shirt and sliding her hands underneath. I backed away from her long enough to pull my shirt over my head, licking my lips as I watched her do the same. I pressed her up against the door again, burying my head in her neck and pressing my lips against her shoulder. She rolled her hips against mine and I moaned, closing my eyes tightly and pulling her close to me so that I could unsnap her bra.

"Welcome home," I whispered, dragging the straps of her bra down her arms and throwing it to the side.

She laughed breathlessly, her hands already at the zipper of my unbuttoned jeans and sliding it down.

"We're not quite there yet," she whispered back before grabbing the waistband of my jeans and shoving them down.

"Anxious?" I laughed, moving from her neck and running my hands over the sides of her breasts.

She bit her bottom lip, whimpering quietly and trailing her fingertips over the top of my boxers. I moved my hands down, quickly unbuttoning her pants and watching as she toed off her shoes. Licking my lips, I hooked my thumbs over her jeans and panties, pushing them both down and attacking her lips as she kicked them off. She shoved my boxers down and I reached down to grab the backs of her thighs, pulling her up and moaning as she wrapped her legs around my waist. She wrapped her hands around my neck, leaning back against the door and pressing her lips more urgently against mine.

I slid into her quickly, digging my fingertips into her thighs and breaking away from her to kiss across her cheek and down to her neck.

"Now," she breathed, her fingers curling into the hair at the back of my neck, "I'm home."

"Bella," I moaned, slowly thrusting my hips up.

She moved her hips with mine, sliding her hands from my neck to grab onto my shoulders as she tightened her legs around me.

The world faded from around us as we moved together. I forgot about the premiere, about the stress we'd both be under after our official debut to the world tonight; nothing else mattered but the woman I was holding up against my door.

I slammed one hand onto the door beside her, turning my head and attaching my mouth to the side of her neck. She moaned loudly, her fingernails digging into my shoulders as I wrapped my other arm tightly around her waist and pulled her even tighter against me.

I closed my eyes tightly, moving my hips faster into hers as I felt the coil growing tighter in the pit of my stomach. She slammed her head back into the door and arched her back, her chest pressing against mine as I pulled her tighter to me.

"Edward," she moaned, one of her hands reaching up to fist in my hair and pull.

"Wait for me," I demanded into her neck, angling my hips and moaning loudly as I slid even deeper into her. "With me, Bella. Come with me."

"Fuck," she breathed, her fingernails probably permanently embedded into my skin at this point.

Not that I really gave a shit. She felt right and perfect and amazing and I never wanted to let her go again. If we could make a living off being with each other all the damn time, I'd be perfectly content with that. I didn't need to be anywhere that she wasn't and at the first sign of her unhappiness, I was packing my bags and we were going back to New York.

She was all that mattered anymore. She was my life now.

I grabbed onto her hips with both of my hands, moving my face from her neck and roughly crushing my mouth against hers. She slid her other hand up into my hair, pulling roughly and whimpering as I felt her entire body start to shake.

"Edward," she moaned again, tearing her mouth from mine and leaning forward to rest her forehead on my shoulder. "Almost…"

"Yes, Bella. Wait for me."

Her hands clenched and unclenched in my hair and I dug my fingertips into her hips, moving my hips almost frantically against hers. I let my head drop back onto my shoulders when I felt her tongue licking around my collarbone and hissed out a breath through my teeth. And when she bit down on my shoulder, that was all it took.

"Now," I growled, tilting my head back up and watching as she threw hers back, hitting the door again.

I buried my face into her neck once more, moaning loudly into her skin as she shook and writhed in my arms, small, choked whimpers making their way out of her mouth as I released into her.

I slumped against her when we were finished, our chests working against each other as I held on to her as tightly as I could even though my entire body was still shaking.

"And that is the proper way," she breathed, her hands loosening from my hair and running soothingly down my scalp, "to welcome me home."

I laughed breathlessly into her neck, pressing a line of kisses against her shoulder.

"We have to move," I sighed, turning my head and kissing the side of her neck. "Or I'm going to drop you."

She sighed heavily and I smirked, kissing her neck once more before sliding out of her and taking a step back.

Unfortunately, my jeans and boxers were still around my ankles and all that I ended up doing was falling backwards, landing us both on the floor.

"Fuck!" I yelled, quickly pulling her legs out from underneath me and running my hands up and down her calves. "You all right? Anything broken?"

"Edward," she laughed, leaning down and burying her face into my chest. "Oh, you should've seen your face!"

I pursed my lips and rolled my eyes up to the ceiling, shaking my head as I rested my hands on her knees when she placed her feet flat on the floor.

"I guess you're fine."

"When you spend half of your life falling," she gasped between giggles, "you learn to start ignoring the small things."

"But are you in pain?"

"No," she laughed, shaking her head before wiggling down to rest on my thighs and leaning down to rest her chin in the center of my chest. "Are you?"

I sighed heavily, shaking my head and looking down at her as I reached up and ran my hands down her hair.

"No."

"Okay then," she smiled brightly, tilting her head and pressing a kiss against my chest. "No worries."

"You are… absolutely amazing," I laughed, shaking my head again as I linked my fingers behind her shoulder blades.

"Mm," she hummed in agreement, looking up and resting her chin on my chest again. "Guess what?"

"What?"

"I'm in California," she whispered, folding her hands underneath her chin and grinning up at me. "I'm with you in California."

Just the way she said it had a grin pulling at the corners of my mouth and I untangled my hands from her back, grabbing her underneath her arms and pulling her up so that she was hovering over me. She laughed, quickly slapping her hands onto the floor beside my head as she straddled my waist. I moved my hands and framed her face, pulling her down and gently pressing my lips against hers.

"Yeah," I whispered back, nodding as I threaded my fingers into her hair. "You are."

"And tomorrow, I'm gonna go back to New York," she whispered, tilting her head and pressing her lips against my neck, "to get everything squared away and in its place before I come back to you."

My eyes fluttered closed and I rolled my head to the side as she kissed her way up to my ear, my hands trailing down her neck to rest on her shoulders.

"Permanently," she whispered again, nipping at the bottom of my ear.

I breathed out a small moan before swallowing hard and squeezing my eyes together tightly.

"But right now," she mumbled, kissing a trail up my cheek and back to my lips, "we should probably get off the floor."

I breathed out a laugh and my eyes popped open, looking up into hers as I sucked in a deep breath and nodded.

"Probably should, huh?"

She smiled and picked up one hand to run it through my hair, stopping when she met the carpet and gently dragging her fingernails over my scalp.

"Probably."

I sat up and she slid down into my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck and kissing me soundly.

"I love you," she whispered as she pulled back from me.

I wrapped my arms around her waist, squeezing her to me tightly and brushing the end of my nose against hers, smiling like an ass.

"I love you, too." I leaned in a kissed her once more. "Now, how about that tour?"

"Do we need to get dressed?"

"No."

"Then let's get to it!"

She hopped off my lap and I laughed, toeing off my shoes and kicking off my jeans and boxers before standing up and walking up behind her. She was standing at the edge of the living room, looking out the wide windows that took up most of the back wall, her hands clasped in front of her and her bottom lip in between her teeth. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her against me again, leaning down to rest my chin on her shoulder. She placed her hands on my arms and I started to slowly sway us from side to side.

"I'm home," she whispered, her pointer finger rubbing up and down my arm.

I smiled softly and buried my nose into her shoulder, squeezing her tightly as I placed a soft kiss against her skin and nodded.

"So am I."

~*~

I took a deep breath and reached over to grab Bella's hand as the limo inched along in traffic, indicating that we were close to the premiere and would have to get out and face the crowd I knew was standing around and waiting for me and my co-stars.

"Are you ready?"

I watched her take a deep breath and nod, squeezing my hand and scooting closer to me.

"They're gonna want pictures of just you, Edward," Jeannie stated from her seat across from us.

She was, for lack of a better word, babysitting to make sure that we made it to the premiere on time. It was absurd, but with the tight strapless short black and white dress that Bella had shimmied herself into, maybe it wasn't completely unwarranted. Going to a premiere when she looked like that hadn't been the first thing on my mind.

Alice had dragged Bella into her room the minute we'd returned from dinner the night before to choose a dress for the premiere, but neither of them would let me see it. I suspected that Alice had more to do with that decision than Bella did and couldn't understand it for the life of me.

It wasn't like it was her wedding dress for Christ's sake.

But upon seeing her as she opened the bedroom door fifteen minutes ago, I was pretty damn thankful they'd both kept it from me.

"So, Bella, you'll have to step back from him for a few minutes and let them do their thing."

"No," I said quickly, looking over at her and shaking my head. "They'll get over it, Jeannie. I'm not letting her go."

"Edward, I'll be fine," she said softly, placing her other hand on my upper arm. "It's only for a few minutes."

"Bella…"

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to my ear, squeezing my arm.

"Your world, Edward," she whispered. "Do what you need to do and I'll still be here when you're done."

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard, nodding before opening my eyes and looking over at Jeannie who sat there with an amused smile on her face.

"You need to keep her around," she stated, pointing at Bella. "I wonder if you can make him get to places on time?"

Bella laughed nervously, still not a hundred percent comfortable with Jeannie and shrugged her shoulders.

"I can try."

Jeannie's cell phone chose that moment to start ringing and I quickly turned to Bella, cupping her cheek in my hand and leaning forward to kiss her forehead.

"Don't go too far," I whispered, tangling my hands in her abnormally straight hair.

"Trust me," she whispered back, smiling up at me and nudging the tip of her nose against mine, "I'm never going any further than I have to."

"Edward, there's some girl harassing the security guards saying that she's your date," Jeannie sighed, rolling her eyes. "Says that you gave her a ticket and everything."

"Oh my God," Bella breathed, laughing as she buried her face in my neck.

"Oh Jesus," I moaned, closing my eyes and sighing heavily as I shook my head, my hand falling from Bella's hair and into my lap. "Forgot about her."

Bella only laughed harder, one of her hands coming up to rest on my chest and her fingers curling into my shirt.

"I didn't think she'd…" she choked out before bursting into laughter again.

"Care to explain?" Jeannie asked dryly.

I opened my eyes and looked over at her, barely able to contain the smile on my face as I licked my lips and took a deep breath.

"Her name's Jessica, am I right?"

Jeannie merely nodded, one of her eyes narrowing at me as she tapped her bitten-down fingernails against the side of her phone.

"Tell her to look closely at her ticket."

"No!" Bella gasped, sitting up straight and looking at me with wide eyes. "No, wait! I have a great idea."

"What?"

"Can she just… stand there? By the guards for a few minutes?" she asked, looking over at Jeannie.

Jeannie shrugged and nodded, still eyeing Bella cautiously.

"Why?"

"Just look at her, Edward, and smile," Bella said, turning back to me and grinning brightly. "But don't go to her, okay? Just wait for me."

"What do you have in mind?" I mumbled, smiling down at her and resting my forehead against hers.

"Just a little payback," she said innocently, shrugging her shoulders. "I know it's childish but…"

"No," I said quickly, shaking my head and laughing lightly. "I'll do whatever you want."

She laughed brightly and leaned up to place an exuberant kiss against my lips before sitting back.

"All right," Jeannie sighed, shaking her head as she hung up the phone. "The girl is standing by the guards and waiting for you. We're up next." She craned her neck to look out the windows and nodded before sitting back. "George here is taking me back to my place and he'll be back at around one a.m. If you need him before that, call me and I'll call the agency."

I nodded, my leg nervously starting to bounce up and down as I looked out the tinted windows and swallowed hard when I saw the crowd standing outside. The calm I'd been feeling a few seconds ago had immediately disappeared and I was left nervous and anxious, my stomach tied up in knots as the realization of what this event would mean for Bella's life. It'd be turned completely upside down and she'd never just be a normal girl again.

I looked down when Bella squeezed my hand and smiled softly, my leg immediately calming down as I looked up at her. She reached up with her other hand to run her knuckles down my cheek and tilt her head.

"We're fine," she whispered.

I grabbed her hand in mine, squeezing them both before leaning down and kissing her softly.

"Edward, don't forget about your interview with _GQ_ tomorrow," Jeannie stated, making me jump.

Sure, she might've _just_ been talking to me, but it was fairly easy to get lost and forget things when Bella was looking at me and reassuring me and being everything that I needed her to be.

"Yeah, I remember," I mumbled absently.

"What time does your flight leave, Bella?"

"One-fifteen tomorrow afternoon."

I squeezed her hands again, still hating the fact that she'd have to leave me for any amount of time. It sure as hell helped knowing that she'd be back as soon as she possibly could be, though, and God knows it wouldn't be as hard to see her off as it had been to say goodbye to her last time.

I jumped again when the door next to me opened and heard Bella laugh as she let go of my hands and slid away from me. I pouted slightly before sighing and sliding out of the limo, immediately greeted with a roar of screams and flashes from cameras.

Fuck, I hated premieres.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped away from the door and immediately spotted Jessica standing by the guards at the start of the ropes, blocking off the photographers and fans from the carpet. She was wearing a hideously bright purple dress, her blonde hair was up in some sort of fashion that looked to me like a rat had nested in it and she was bouncing up and down excitedly, waving at me.

Seeing her so excited and acting like any other fan on the red carpet would if they'd seen me up close and personal had me feeling a little bad about this whole _payback_ thing Bella had been talking about in the limo.

But as she started fanning herself for reasons I couldn't understand, images of what Bella had looked like upon coming home from work with her and having Jessica throwing herself at me when I picked Bella up at the end of the day slammed through my mind and every little bit of doubt and regret I'd been feeling a second ago was erased.

She'd made Bella's life a living hell and fuck if she didn't deserve this.

I forced the most genuine smile I could manage at her but didn't move – as I was instructed not to – and looked at the guards who were watching her carefully. I watched as her bouncing stopped and her hands fell to her sides, her eyes narrowing at me. I could practically see the steam coming from her ears and held back the bark of laughter that threatened to come forth.

I looked over when I felt Bella's hand slip into mine and grinned over at her, watching as she smiled brightly at Jessica and actually raised her other hand to blow her a kiss as she stood proudly at my side.

I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and kiss her senseless just for that small action alone, but squeezed her hand tightly and waited for her to look at me again instead. She did, her smile bright and her eyes dancing with triumph.

I laughed at her and finally moved from the limo, approaching the carpet and ultimately, Jessica. Her jaw was tense and her eyes were tiny slits of barely controlled rage, her hands clenched into fists at her sides as we approached.

"I'm truly sorry for the misunderstanding, Jessica," I said quietly when we were close enough to her that I wouldn't need to scream, "but Bella will be my date for any future outings. I hope you enjoy the movie."

I was quick to whisk Bella away from her, barely hearing Jessica's aggravated screeching and cursing as someone helped her behind the ropes. I stopped a few feet in, turning both of us toward the mass of photographers with their cameras up to their eyes and their mouths moving a mile a minute in words that I couldn't even begin to understand.

I looked down at Bella when I felt her other hand wrap around both of ours to see that she was grinning up at me, her entire face lit up.

"That was fucking priceless," she whispered into my ear as she stood up on her toes.

I laughed and nodded, turning to press my lips against her forehead quickly.

"Yeah," I agreed before turning back to the photographers and for the first time, being able to actually give them a real smile.

What was even better than watching Jessica's face and being able to set her straight was the fact that Bella was here to do it with me. She'd be there to do it all with me. I wouldn't be alone anymore and that was one of the greatest feelings in the entire world.


	34. Chapter 34

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Yeah, it's taken me a little longer to post this than normal, but I had kind of a rough time staying focused and trying to get everything just right in this chapter. So I stressed myself out and made this harder to write than it honestly needed to be.**

**Regardless, it's here and you guys are amazing for everything you say and every recommendation that's put out there. Come and check out Twilighted for teasers and fun Rob pictures. Link on my profile.**

**Oh, and nominations for the Bellie awards have opened so be sure to go over there and nominate your favorite stories!**

**Okay, I'm done. Enjoy!**

~*~

***Bella***

It took me all of five seconds for the high I'd been on to wear off. The cameras and flashes and the screaming of Edward's name snapped me back into focus really damn quickly and had my stomach dropping into my feet.

There were _so many_ of them. And seeing this on television or in pictures didn't compare to the way it really was when I was standing directly in the middle of it. It was ten times different than the airport had been this morning and it made me feel a little sick, to be perfectly honest. There was no way to focus on any one person and they were all just blurs of camera flashes and colors to me.

He'd warned me about all of this and I'd assured him _many_ times that I knew what I was getting into when I told him that I was moving here to be with him.

But I didn't – not until this very moment when I _finally_ let it sink in that my entire world had been spun on its axis and I was quickly losing my footing.

I wanted to get Edward's attention and tell him that this was too much; I didn't think that I'd ever be able to adjust to something like this.

But when I looked up at him as we stood in the middle of the red carpet, people blurring around us, to see that he was smiling – _really_ smiling – I couldn't do it. This was his life, I'd told him that I'd be fine as long as he was with me and damn it all, he _enjoyed_ this.

Why shouldn't he? He deserved all of the attention that was thrown his way. And because I was going to be with him and this was all going to be a very big part of my new life with him, I simply squeezed his hand, smiled at all the people snapping our picture, stepped away when I had to and did it all with as much grace as I could muster up.

By the time we made it into the theater, I felt like I was going to fall to pieces. My legs felt like they were made of rubber and walking in the damn shoes Alice had made me promise to wear with this thing she called a dress wasn't making anything any easier.

I'd been introduced to a few of his co-stars and while they were all as nicely detached to me as I could expect, they were also fucking gorgeous.

Cue massive insecurities and irrational jealousy – simultaneously. For fuck's sake, this was _Hollywood_; of course they would be as inhumanly beautiful as possible, wearing expensive dresses from designers that I couldn't even pronounce and diamonds sparkling each time they moved an inch.

Most of them didn't bother me. In fact, I found watching them to be extremely entertaining and until _she'd_ walked in the room – with her flame red hair, white curve-hugging dress, tiny little body and a laugh that could be heard through a hurricane – I'd nearly forgotten what I needed to be worried about.

I watched as her eyes landed on Edward while we talked to someone whose name I couldn't quite remember before she was strutting across the room with her lips pursed and her hands on her hips. She'd completely ignored me while she draped herself over Edward's shoulders, laughing loudly and pouting her lips entirely too close to his for my liking. And when he'd finally gotten a chance to speak and had immediately introduced me, the look she'd shot my way should've been more than enough to have me cowering and running away.

But just because Victoria DeHoney had a steamy sex scene with my boyfriend in the movie we were all currently waiting to see didn't mean that fantasy would live up to reality. _I_ was on his arm tonight – _not_ her. _I_ would be crawling into bed with him tonight – _not her_. And if she touched his chest or _accidentally_ bumped me out of the way one more time, she was going to be missing a few important limbs.

Needless to say, I was extremely glad when we were told to take our seats at seven. Victoria had disappeared the minute we walked in and we were surrounded by people that didn't really seem to have much interest in trying to molest my boyfriend.

When the lights dropped down, Edward leaned over the cushy arm rest and placed his lips against my ear.

"You wanna get out of here?" he whispered, his fingertips ghosting over the back of my hand.

"What? We just got here," I laughed in a whisper, shaking my head.

"Yeah, well… I hate watching myself and plus," he mumbled, linking our fingers together, "you're leaving tomorrow and I want to spend time with you."

"I'm coming back, you know."

"I know, but you'll still be gone for a while. It feels like I just got you back and I'm gonna miss you."

I leaned into him, closing my eyes as the opening credits appeared on the screen. Victoria didn't matter, the paparazzi failed to exist and we were back to Bella and Edward in our little bubble. My insecurities melted away, the jealousy disappeared, my knees suddenly felt a hell of a lot sturdier and my stomach was back where it was supposed to be.

_I_ was where I was supposed to be.

"Won't Jeannie be mad?"

"She'll get over it. We did the carpet thing and smiled pretty. Let's just… go home."

My heart fluttered in my chest and I slowly opened my eyes to see a sprawling seascape up on the screen. As beautiful as it was, it was nothing compared to the man sitting next to me and the way he made me feel.

"Okay."

He grinned at me and we stood up, quickly walking back up the darkened aisle without drawing too much attention to ourselves and walking back into the bright, empty lobby. He dragged me over to a corner of the red and gold themed room, wrapping an arm around my waist as he let go of my hand and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He twisted his lips to the side and smirked, shaking his head as he dialed in what I assumed to be Jeannie's number before placing it up against his ear.

"What?"

"Mind if we make a stop before going home?" he asked, his hand rubbing circles on my back.

I shrugged, shaking my head as I leaned against him and rested my head on his chest. I listened as he told Jeannie that we wanted to leave an hour and fifteen minutes after arriving, cringing at the volume of her voice on the other end.

That woman was _shrill_ when she wanted to be.

"No one will miss us," he insisted, sighing.

I jumped when I clearly heard her screech, _"You're the star of the movie, Edward! You can't just __**leave**__! They're going to notice that!"_

"Jeannie, please," he begged, his hand still rubbing circles on my back as he leaned down and dropped his chin onto the top of my head. "I promise to be on time for everything for the rest of my life if you just send the limo back right now."

_"Oh, right, Edward. I don't believe that for a second!"_

"Well, okay, look at it this way," he started, huffing slightly, "either the limo comes back or I'm calling a cab."

They were both quiet and I bit my bottom lip, looking down at my feet.

"Thank you," he finally said, tilting his head and pressing his lips to the top of my head. "I'll call you when the interview is over tomorrow morning."

With that, he dropped the phone from his ear, pressed the button to end the call and shoved it back into his pocket. He wrapped both arms around me, pulling me tight against him and swaying from side to side.

"Are you gonna be back before I leave?" I asked, tilting my head out from underneath his chin and looking up at him.

"Of course," he smiled, nodding. "The interview is at nine and should last about an hour or so. I'll have plenty of time to come home and get you."

I smiled and nodded, leaning up and gently kissing his chin before stepping back down and resting my cheek against his chest.

"So where do we need to stop?"

He hummed out a chuckle, squeezing me tightly and kissing the top of my head again.

"It's a surprise."

I groaned and turned my head to bury my nose into his chest.

"Edward!" I whined. "No more surprises!"

"Last one for a while. I promise."

I huffed and backed away to look up at him. I held up my hand, curling all my fingers except for my pinkie. He barked out a laugh before reaching up and twisting his pinkie around mine. I smiled triumphantly and nodded, standing up on my toes to kiss him quickly.

"Thank you."

"No problem, love."

Twenty minutes later, I sat in the back of the parked limo, Edward's tie wrapped around my eyes while I impatiently waited for him to get back.

We'd escaped out a door at the back of the theater and had quickly been ushered into the waiting limo, bypassing another very large room where I'd seen a few of his co-stars - including Victoria - sitting around a bar with drinks in their hands and smiles on their faces as they toasted each other. I couldn't really say that I'd miss not going to _that_ too much.

Once we were both seated and Edward had whispered the destination of this newest surprise to the driver, George, Edward had also given him strict instructions to physically restrain me in any way possible – without causing me any harm – if I so much as twitched towards the door.

It was absolutely ridiculous and completely like Edward to do something like this. One day, I was gonna get him back. And he probably wouldn't like it.

I crossed my arms over my chest, leaning back against the seat and stifling a yawn.

It had been an extremely long day and all I really wanted to do was curl up next to Edward in the insanely large bed that was in his room and get some sleep. I hadn't realized how tired I was until I'd started to relax a few minutes ago, but now all I wanted to do was crawl in between the covers of the extremely large, comfortable bed and go to sleep.

I jumped when the door opened and pursed my lips when I heard his laugh. I didn't care how much I enjoyed hearing it; when he was making me jump and laughing every time it happened, the last thing I wanted to do was marvel over how it sounded.

"This is ridiculous!"

"I didn't want you peeking," he said easily and I jumped again when I felt his lips on my cheek.

I cursed at him under my breath, raising an eyebrow when I heard a plastic bag rustling as he closed the door.

"I really wish you liked being surprised," he mused and I felt him shifting closer to me.

"Are you naked?"

"What? No."

"That's the only surprise I'd like to see."

He laughed and I felt the limo starting to move again, huffing a little and keeping my arms crossed tightly over my chest while I attempted to glare in his direction.

"Maybe later," he whispered, suddenly by my ear and his lips grazing over the skin on my neck.

I bit back a shiver before I felt his hands at the back of his tie, thankful when it fell down around my neck and my sight was restored. Unfortunately, my eyes landed on the plastic bag resting at his feet, the familiar extended red check mark plastered on the side.

"Edward," I sighed, looking over at him and letting my hands fall into my lap.

"When I couldn't get a hold of you on New Year's Eve, it was…" He sighed heavily and pulled the tie carefully from my neck. "I didn't like it, Bella. I thought something had happened to you."

"But I was…"

"I was scared," he said softly, winding the tie around his hands nervously.

My eyes snapped to his and I swallowed hard when I saw the honesty and vulnerability staring back at me. I hadn't even thought to call him before I left the house. I just knew that I needed to get there and every other rational thought was pushed to the back of my mind. I never thought that not calling him would make him worry about me.

"Edward," I whispered, reaching up to place my hand on his cheek.

He leaned into it, his eyes closing as he reached up with one hand to cover and slide his fingers in between mine.

"I'd seen the pictures of you outside of your store and when I didn't hear from you, I thought that maybe they'd followed you home or blocked you from leaving. I just didn't _know_." He sucked in a deep breath and opened his eyes again. "So it's more for me than it is for you, I guess."

I leaned in to him, gently placing my lips on his and rubbing my thumb over his chin, carefully curling my fingers around his.

"Can I see it?" I whispered as I backed away from him.

I opened my eyes to see him grinning at me before he threw the tie onto the floor and grabbed the bag, handing it to me. I moved my hand from his, taking the bag and pulling out the box that housed my brand new, apparently fully equipped Blackberry cell phone.

I'd never had the need for a cell phone before. No one had ever gotten reception for one at my house and for the amount of time that I spent in Queensbury where I would've been able to get reception, it just wasn't worth it. My place of business was right down the road from my home and I had land lines at both places. There hadn't been any logical reason for me to have a cell phone.

Well, until now.

He probably spent entirely too much money on it, had gotten everything under the sun that probably came with it and probably had half of the phone numbers I'd never use already programmed into it. But if it gave him peace of mind and another way for me to be constantly connected to him when we were apart, I couldn't really complain too much about it.

I looked up at him as I flipped open the top of the box and leaned over to kiss him again.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

~*~

I looked around the airport the next night, standing on my toes as I shouldered one of Edward's messenger bags after I'd shrugged my coat on – I'd left the majority of the things Rose had packed for me in California just to make things a little easier on the way back – and looked over the crowd for a semi-familiar head of curly brown hair.

We'd called Emmett upon our return from the attempted premiere and he'd informed us that his flight would be landing about an hour before mine would. I gave him specific instructions to meet me by the baggage claim at eleven o'clock New York time and he was nowhere to be found.

And there were people openly staring at me and whispering to whomever it was that they might've been walking with.

Nervously looking around once more and not seeing Emmett, I pulled open the flap on the bag at my hip and grabbed the cell phone that Edward spent most of the night and half of the morning after his interview trying to explain its functions to me.

After managing to turn the camera on and bring up a blank text message, I finally found my contact list and scrolled through with the annoyingly tiny ball to get the number Edward had stored for Emmett's cell phone. Clutching the bag close to me, I walked from the baggage carousel and over to a row of the horribly uncomfortable blue seats next to the wall.

And saw Emmett sprawled into one, his head tipped back, a little bit of drool rolling down his cheek and his hand tightly clutching onto a very large orange duffel bag that rivaled the purple one Rosalie had given to me.

Rolling my eyes, I brought my cell phone from my ear and mashed the buttons to end the call before walking over to him and kicking his foot. He jumped, his arms spreading out at his sides as he blinked up at me.

"Hi."

He continued to blink at me before raising his arms over his head, leaning back into the wall and yawning loudly.

"Hi," he managed before standing up and grabbing onto the handles of his duffel bag again as he shouldered away the line of drool on his cheek. "Sorry."

"S'okay. I'm tired, too."

He nodded and absently flung an arm around my shoulders, yawning again.

"How are we getting to wherever it is we're going?"

I grinned as I flung an arm around his waist and started to walk in the direction of the exit as I pocketed my cell phone.

"I called Rose this morning and she said she'd pick us up."

He was quiet and I pressed my lips together, stifling laughter as his steps slowed.

"I need to use the restroom," he mumbled before taking off in the direction the sign above us pointed him in.

I laughed, shaking my head as I walked over by the ugly green door he'd just disappeared through and leaned against the wall next to it. I pulled the cell phone back out of my pocket and once again managed to turn the camera on before I was able to get to my contact list. I found Edward's cell phone number and pressed the stupid green button before placing the phone up to my ear and leaning my head back against the wall as well.

"When are you coming home?" Edward immediately greeted.

I laughed softly and wrapped my free arm around my waist, looking down at my feet and licking my lips.

"As soon as possible. Miss me already or something?"

"Yes, of course I miss you already," he sighed heavily. "It doesn't matter how much shit Jeannie has me doing during the day, I'm still coming back to an empty condo."

"I'll try to hurry things up as much as possible. I don't like being without you either." I took a deep, quick breath before continuing on. There was no need to make any of this worse for either of us. "I'm sure you have tons to do to keep yourself occupied without me."

"I've been roped into going out tonight with Victoria, James and some others from the cast," he mumbled and every inch of me tensed. "Something about celebrating the premiere of the greatest movie ever."

I could practically see him rolling his eyes and struggled to laugh, swallowing hard when it came out strangled.

"That should be fun," I managed, nodding and reaching up with my free hand to run it down my face. "Did you get close to them while you were filming?"

"I didn't have much of a choice," he laughed.

I dragged my hand into my hair and fisted it tightly, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.

_She's just a co-star. That's all she is. Just another co-star to him. He's with __**me**__ and they'll be with the rest of the cast. He's not alone with her. This is __**fine**__._

"I'm sure you'll have fun."

"I just wanted to let you know so that when you saw the pictures somewhere along the way, there wouldn't be a misunderstanding. Don't listen to whatever they have to say, Bella," he said quietly, seeming to easily pick up on my nerves, "because they're going to start something. They've been doing it since the movie wrapped."

"Hey," I said softly, swallowing hard and digging my toe into the blue carpet, "I trust you."

"I just wanted you to be aware. I love _you_, Bella."

I smiled and dropped my hand to my side, hooking my thumb into my pocket.

"I love you too."

"Are you with Emmett? I don't hear him."

"I told him that Rose was picking us up and he disappeared into the bathroom."

He laughed loudly and I grinned, looking up to find that there were three girls standing a few feet away from me, their phones flipped up and pointed in my direction.

I sighed and looked away from them, shaking my head slightly and not understanding at all what the sudden obsession with me was. Yeah, okay, I was dating Edward Cullen, big shot actor. But he wasn't here and I wasn't that interesting so what in the hell was the need to take pictures of _me_?

"Hopefully he'll come out soon," I grumbled, once again wrapping my free arm around my waist.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. There's just…" I looked over at the girls and sighed again, looking down at my feet once more. "There are these three girls standing in front of me with their phones out."

I was pretty sure I heard him growl and smirked, shaking my head and looking up as the bathroom door opened. Emmett thankfully walked out looking a hell of a lot more chipper than I could really claim to be. All I could do was laugh at him and shake my head.

"Are you ready, my dear?" he asked, holding out his elbow to me and standing up straight.

"I hear him," Edward mumbled.

I laughed and nodded, winding my arm around Emmett's elbow and slowly leading us toward the exit once more.

"He's here."

"Is that Edward? Tell him that I'm taking good care of his little love muffin."

I craned my neck to look up at him, blinking and shaking my head in disbelief, little bouts of laughter slipping through my lips as I listened to Edward's laughter on the other end of the line.

"Tell him that he better be!" he laughed. "Kind of fond of you."

"Well that's good to know," I drawled, still shaking my head as we made it outside.

And it was so much more peaceful walking outside in Albany than it had been when we walked out of LAX that I sighed in relief, relaxing against Emmett and scanning the brightly lit pick-up spot for Rose's beloved car.

"I'll let you go, love," Edward sighed into my ear.

"All right," I mumbled, spotting Rose's car and tugging on Emmett's arm to get him to follow me as I started off in that direction. "Call me when you have time tomorrow."

"Call me when you wake up," he countered, "and I'll make time for you."

I smiled and bit my bottom lip, watching as Rosalie crawled out of the driver's seat upon our approach.

"Okay."

"I'm still not saying it."

"I still don't want you to."

"Okay."

"Okay."

I held on, merely staring at Rose as we came to a stop in front of her until I heard the line click and brought the phone down, pressing the little red button to end the call.

"You better appreciate this, Bella," she stated, huffing. "I have to work in the morning."

"Thank you, Rose. I appreciate it," I stated, finally looking up at her and smiling widely as I shoved the phone back into my pocket.

Her eyes were wider than normal and she had her jaw clenched tightly, standing tense and nervous in front of me. I furrowed my eyebrows at her, wondering what the hell her problem was until I felt Emmett shift and then clear his throat.

"Oh!" I laughed, covering my mouth with my hand before standing up straight and smirking at her. "Rose, Emmett. Emmett, Rose."

They stared at each other, both of them nodding awkwardly to the other and I barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes and slap my forehead.

_Smooth, guys; real smooth._

"So, are you ready?" she asked, clearing her throat and looking back at me.

"Yeah," I nodded, shaking my head as I walked around to the passenger side of the car and dragged Emmett along with me.

He'd been unnaturally silent since we'd walked outside and I didn't know what to do with that. He'd always had something to say no matter the situation and to look at him and have his mouth actually _closed_ was a little unnerving.

"You sit in the front," I said before moving my arm from his and yanking open the door.

He sputtered behind me and I snickered to myself as I pulled the seat up and crawled in the back, grinning at Rose as she glared at me.

"My visit was fine, by the way, thanks for asking," I drawled as Emmett shoved the seat back and flopped down into it.

"I saw the pictures," she quipped, quickly turning back to face the front. "I know exactly how your visit went."

"Out already, huh?" I asked, flinching slightly.

"Oh yeah," Emmett laughed, turning in his seat to look at me. "They're everywhere, Bella. Alice was very excited."

"I'm sure she was," I mumbled, reaching up to run my hands through my hair.

"That's what you get for dating a famous actor!" Rosalie exclaimed, pointing at me in the rear view mirror before pulling away from the curb and taking off out of the parking lot.

"Just wait," I grumbled, kicking the back of her seat.

"Do _not_ kick my seats unless you want me to send you back to California in pieces," she threatened, her voice low.

I glared at the back of her head and sighed, shaking my head as I leaned back into the seat and closed my eyes, listening to the awkward, deafening silence in the front seats.

"Angela's making dinner for you tomorrow night at her place," Rose finally said as she merged into the dribble of late night traffic on the Northway.

"She doesn't have to do that."

"She insists and honestly, so do I. You're leaving us, Bella," Rose sighed heavily, catching my eyes in the rear view mirror. "We need to do _something_."

I slid over to the seat behind Rose's and leaned forward to wrap my arms loosely around her shoulders, resting my chin on the side of her seat.

"It's not like I'm disappearing," I mumbled. "I'll still call all the time and come to visit when I can. You guys can come visit too."

She nodded, one of her hands reaching up to rest on my arm as she switched lanes.

"Not the same," she grumbled.

"I know," I said softly. "But I kinda love him."

"I know," she grumbled again.

"And I kinda want to spend the rest of my life with him."

"I know," she sighed heavily, dramatically.

"And to do that, I kinda have to be in California."

"Why can't he live here?" she whined, slapping her hands angrily on the steering wheel.

"I tried asking him that," Emmett finally spoke up.

I looked over at him, raising an eyebrow before shaking my head and moving my arms from Rosalie's shoulders to slide to the center and stick my head between the two seats.

Sure, _now_ he finds his vocal chords.

"See? It's a pretty logical damn question!"

"He needs to be in California; that's where his job is."

"And _your_ job is _here_!"

"I can start another bookstore, Rose," I sighed, leaning forward to rest my elbows on the center console and drop my head into my hands. "He needs to be there and I need to be with him. I'm going."

"I still don't understand why he can't just move here. He'll have to spend a lot of time out there and all, but-"

"And it makes a hell of a lot more sense for me to move out there as opposed to him moving out here if he needs to be out there anyway! Rose," I sighed, running my hands through my hair and sitting up straight. "I'll miss you and I'll miss home, but it's not like I'll never come back!"

"You say that now," she mumbled.

"Think of it this way," I sighed again, looking over at her. "I'm gonna be how I was before New Year's Eve. Do you really want to see me like that again?"

"No," she grumbled.

"And fuck knows I never want to see Edward like that again," Emmett mumbled. "You don't even know how much of a pain in the ass he was once he saw those pictures."

"So we're all well aware that I need to be with Edward. And Edward needs to be in California." I nodded and slapped my hands on the center console again. "End of discussion."

"I still don't understand," Rosalie shook her head. "He's an actor. He can work from anywhere."

"But he's still relatively new to the whole fame thing," Emmett piped up, looking over at her. "It'd be better if he stayed in California until he had the credibility he needs to move wherever he wants."

"He's making more than enough money to do that _now_!"

"It's not always about the money, you know. He needs the _credibility_."

"What do you know about credibility?" she snapped, looking over at him.

"I'm a sports announcer! I know a bit about it!" he exclaimed, sounding extremely offended.

I hung my head and sighed, reaching up and digging the heels of my hands into my eyes.

So much for that perfect match shit everyone had been talking about when it concerned these two.

"That's a lot different from being an actor! And what more credibility does he need? He's been acting since – what? – he was nineteen?"

Her voice had taken on that condescending tone; the one where it sounded like she was talking to a child that didn't quite understand the logistics of getting the spoon into their mouth.

"But he wasn't getting the movie roles he's getting now! People barely knew his name before! This is his breakthrough year and he needs to be in California for the majority of it!"

"Why? Did he even consider what it would do to Bella's—"

"We're not dragging Bella into this!" I exclaimed, my head snapping up quickly as I looked in between them. "Bella's moving no matter what the hell you two argue about."

Rosalie huffed and glared over at Emmett before reaching forward and flicking on the radio, setting the volume up to an uncomfortable level and nixing out any attempt at small talk.

Oh, it was going to be a very interesting stay. I didn't know how long I'd need to be here but damn it all if I wasn't going to hurry it up. I didn't need these two trying to yank each other's throats out at any opportunity.

Plus, I'd never be able to hide that from the papers and having to explain that my best friend ripped my boyfriend's brother's head off was _not_ something that I'd ever look forward to dealing with.

On top of that, I was pretty sure Edward and the rest of his family would never forgive me for letting something like that happen.

With a sigh, I flopped back into the seat and closed my eyes, taking deep breaths as I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to remember what it was about these two that everyone thought would make them perfect together.


	35. Chapter 35

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**As always, you guys are better than strawberry shortcake and I love you like you wouldn't believe. Thank you to my unofficial beta who doesn't really think she's a beta, Angie. You seriously deserve a medal for putting up with all of my bullshit.**

**And I know you're all anxious to start reading this, so I'll let you get to it. Enjoy!**

~*~

***Edward***

The minute I dropped Bella off at the airport, I'd had an extremely long meeting with Jeannie where we covered everything from my life with Bella to the new movie I'd start working on after my mini-vacation in March. I had press junkets and appearances and interviews with everything I could possibly imagine coming up and just looking at the schedule a second time had me panting in exhaustion. I'd be traveling a lot and I wasn't sure if Bella would go with me. She wanted to open up her new bookstore as soon as she could, I presumed, so would she even be able to go with me?

Shaking my head and making a mental note of everything I needed to talk over with Bella when she got back, I'd sat with Jeannie while she prattled on and waited to be dismissed.

When I was finally allowed to leave, I stood outside of the office building, juggling the keys to the one extreme I'd allowed myself – my Aston Martin – in my hands and wondered what the hell I was supposed to do now.

Bella was in New York. I hadn't heard from Tanya since New Year's Eve, meaning that she was probably off somewhere with her latest boyfriend I hadn't heard about or still on her holiday, and couldn't count on her to keep me occupied. So I'd sighed heavily and trudged down the sidewalk and into the underground parking garage, getting into the car and driving back to my building.

I'd cleaned my already spotless condo. I'd ventured into town and bought an extremely expensive frame for the picture of me and Bella. Then I hung the damn thing in _our_ bedroom, smiling like an ass the entire time.

I'd fielded phone calls from Alice and had completely ignored a few from Victoria as I stepped back and studied the print that was now hanging right above _our_ bed in _our_ bedroom.

And then I sighed because it was official; I was a woman.

So I finally answered my cell phone, letting Alice excitedly go on about all the plans she had for Bella when her and Jasper finally made the big move to California and finally called Victoria back.

And by the time Bella called to tell me that she was back in New York with my dumbass brother, I'd been roped into going out with Victoria and some other members of the cast against my better judgment. While I'd gotten close to them during filming and could consider them professional acquaintances, the group of them together made me a little uneasy. They'd been in the acting business for quite some time and I don't know if they'd just gotten jaded or had always acted as though everyone owed them something, but being around them more than I had to be always made me a little nervous.

But going out with them would be better than sitting in the condo, staring at the picture and wishing that Bella was still here with me. The condo just felt... empty now.

Twenty minutes after I'd hung up the phone with Bella, I was standing outside of the upscale club Laurent had insisted we go to tonight, smiling tightly at the paparazzi as they walked backwards to snap their pictures of me for the night.

There weren't enough words to describe how much I missed New York. Or, hell, even Forks at this point.

"Where's your girl, Edward?"

"Did you two break it off already?"

I resisted the urge to growl at them as I shook my head and walked up the steps to the glass door leading in to the club.

"No, we didn't. And she's simply not here," I said easily, shrugging before I yanked open the door and quickly slipped inside.

The lights were dimmed, the music wasn't too loud and it was packed full of people. Ducking my head and stuffing my hands in my pockets, I weaved around highly drunk women and the men that were carrying them off to what I assumed was the bathroom.

I slowly made my way to the edge of the open, square room and stood up on my toes in an attempt to see a glimpse of any of my cast mates lurking around somewhere.

I heard Victoria's laugh before I saw her, following the sound and looking to my left to find her sitting in between James and Laurent, with Jane and Alec sitting across from them. I sucked in a deep breath and squared my shoulders as I walked up and slid into the booth next to Jane.

"There he is!" James exclaimed, raising his arms over his head and snapping his fingers at the nervous waitress standing nearby.

I repressed the urge to sigh heavily at him, feeling extremely sorry for the poor girl that looked like she'd duck and cover at any loud noise or raised voice.

They were all used to being waited on hand and foot; being at a club was no different and they respected no one but themselves. I, apparently, had quite a ways to go before I earned half the respect they had for themselves but couldn't quite muster up enough strength to really give a damn.

"Man of the hour," Victoria purred, leaning over the table and showing me hints of what I'd been forced to see on the movie set.

"Where's your new girl?" Jane asked, eyeing me as she tapped the sides of her glass.

"New York." I smiled at the girl James had snapped at, ordering a beer before turning back to them. "She's tying up loose ends and then coming back here."

"Getting serious, are we?" Laurent asked, raising a dark eyebrow at me and leaning back in his seat.

"She's that librarian right?" Alec asked, peeking around Jane. "You can't _possibly_ be serious with her."

"We are and I am," I nodded, thanking the still-nervous waitress as she reappeared with my beer. "She's moving out here and she's not a librarian."

Alec rolled his eyes and I bit the inside of my cheek in an attempt to stay civil.

"Edward, really," Victoria scoffed, flipping her hair over her shoulder and rolling her clear green eyes. "You'll never settle down with someone like her."

I lifted the bottle to my lips, eyeing them all as I tipped it back.

"She's very plain," Jane announced, nodding decisively.

"I never would've fucked her," Alec stated, looking over at Jane and grinning widely at her.

"I guess it's good that you're not me then, huh?" I asked, my voice low as I snapped the bottle back onto the table.

It would do me no good to fly over Jane and murder him. I'd end up in jail and then I'd _never_ see Bella.

"Guess we're pissing him off," Laurent laughed, amusement dancing in his dark brown eyes as he raised his glass and tipped it at me in salute.

"Just trying to give you some advice, Edward," Victoria smiled, reaching over to run her knuckles over mine as I gripped the bottle tightly.

"Thanks," I said through my teeth, quickly snatching my hand away. "But I'm doing fine on my own."

"You'll see," Jane said innocently before lifting her glass to her lips and looking away from me.

I glared at the side of her deceivingly innocent and youthful face, biting my tongue in hopes that it would stop the words I really wanted to say from coming out.

They didn't know Bella; hell, they barely knew more about me than anyone else in this entire damn town did. What right did they have to make assumptions like that?

"Dance with me," Victoria demanded, shoving James out of the booth and standing up before grabbing my free hand and pulling forcefully.

"No, thanks."

"She's not here!" she laughed, still tugging on my hand. "Have a little fun!"

Yeah, this was fun. Sure. Sitting here and listening to them discount everything that had happened in my life in the past month was tons of fucking fun.

"She won't kill you for enjoying yourself, I'm sure," James grinned at me. "And if you happen to have a little more fun than anticipated, well…"

He shrugged his shoulders and dusted off his hands, still grinning at me as my vision glazed over in red.

I didn't even know these people. At all. They'd been completely different while we were on the set and filming. They'd never acted like this towards me during that time. Sure, Victoria had tried getting into my pants on more than one occasion, but none of them had been anything like _this_ before.

"She doesn't have to know," Victoria purred, her lips suddenly pressed against my ear.

I jumped up and moved away from her, shaking my head and reaching up to tangle my hands in my hair.

"I need some air," I stated before turning on my heel and walking back towards the front door.

I stopped abruptly, my arms hanging limply at my sides as I looked through the glass door to see that the paparazzi were still out there – their hands on the cameras swinging from their necks and pacing back and forth at the bottom of the steps. Like lions, waiting for their prey; waiting for _me_.

And I was the asshole bringing Bella into this world with me. Begging her to go premieres with me, shoving her into the direct spotlight, uprooting her entire _life_ for _this_. A life where she'd be stalked, hounded with questions, put on display and ridiculed like she wasn't an actual person anymore.

I couldn't let her do it. I _wouldn't_ let her do it. Not for me, no. She deserved more than this bullshit I'd already put her through. She was _better_ than all of this.

I jumped, ready to attack if necessary when I felt hands on my arm and immediately looked down into a pair of familiar amber colored eyes.

"Tanya," I breathed, smiling as I reached around her petite 5'2" frame to hug her tightly.

"Hi, boy!" she laughed, her arms tight around my neck as she kicked her feet up behind her. "Heard that you were here."

"How? I just got here," I laughed, setting her down once she'd lowered her feet.

"The internet is a many wondrous thing," she grinned, standing up on her toes to ruffle my hair. "Speaking of… I think you have quite a bit to tell me."

I grinned back at her, reaching up to push some of her strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear as I nodded.

"Yes, I do."

She nodded decisively before hooking her arm through mine and turning us to face the door again.

"Are you ready?"

I took a deep breath, placed one hand over hers and nodded.

To hell with my cast mates sitting in a booth behind me somewhere. They'd done nothing but piss me off since I'd arrived and I hadn't seen Tanya since before I'd left for New York. She was the only person in this town that I could count as a real friend and at this moment in time, I _really_ needed someone else to talk to.

"As ready as I can be."

"Then off we go," she stated, pulling on my arm and pushing through the glass door.

We were immediately blinded by flashes, questions and our names were being thrown at us as we walked down the stairs and onto the sidewalk.

"My place?" she asked quietly, her heels clicking against the cement as we walked down the sidewalk.

"Yeah," I nodded, looking up and sighing heavily as I watched a young boy – no older than sixteen – run in front of us with a very expensive camera shoved against his eye. "It's closer."

We'd taken this route many times before and were always followed. Tanya lived in a gated building not too far from the main drag in town and it naturally made sense for us to go there when we wanted time to talk or hang out.

Of course, no one else saw it that way. They hid outside of the gate until they saw me leaving at three in the morning, immediately assuming that there had been something other than catching up going on behind the closed doors.

It never failed to amaze me with everything that they came up with. It didn't matter how many times the both of us had said that we were just friends; they always picked apart pictures and analyzed them to within an inch of their lives. It was even funnier when none of it was even close to the truth.

Yes, Tanya was gorgeous and had been on so many of those damn _Hollywood's Hottest_ lists that it was insane. And we'd both given it an honest shot when we started dating, but it hadn't worked as well as we wanted it to. We were destined to be friends – nothing more than that – and no one else in the entire world would believe us or let us live down the three month run we'd had together. It didn't matter how many people we'd been with since then; we were always on the verge of getting back together every time we were photographed.

We were quiet the whole walk from the club to her place, keeping our arms linked as they followed us up the steep hill and stopped at the gate.

"Edward, are you and Tanya back together?" one of them finally broke the silence to ask.

I sighed heavily, looking down at Tanya and shaking my head as I smirked at her. She bit her bottom lip as she hovered around the security keypad and punched her number into it, shaking her head as well.

"We're just _friends_," I said for what felt like the millionth time in the past year.

"We'll be here when you leave," one of them declared proudly, holding his hand up above the rest of them as the gate snapped open.

"Of that, I have no doubts," I sighed, following behind Tanya as she walked in through the open gate.

I walked ahead as she punched in her security code to close the gate and looked behind me, seeing that the paparazzi were huddling around the gate and still snapping pictures of us. We waited until we were safely in her seemingly gold-plated lobby and on our way to the mirrored elevators before turning to each other and sighing heavily.

"It'll never stop, will it?" I asked, reaching over to punch the button that would take us up to her floor.

"Not until one of us gets married to different people," she sighed, shaking her head as she wrapped her arms around one of mine and rested her head on my bicep. "And even then, we'll still be sleeping with each other or some such shit."

I pursed my lips and nodded, sighing heavily and reaching up to rub my forehead.

"You gonna tell me about her or what?"

I looked down at her again and smirked, nodding.

"Oh, trust me. You'll be getting the full version as soon as we're in your living room and you've given me a damn beer. I never did get a chance to finish mine."

"You're more than welcome to go back there," she laughed, pinching my side and snorting when I squeaked and jumped away from her.

"You're not playing fair!" I whined, pointing at her with one hand and rubbing the spot she'd pinched with the other.

"And you sound like a spoiled rotten child." She looked up as the elevator dinged and quickly stepped on once the doors opened. "Come on, hottest actor of the year. You've got some 'splainin to do."

I rolled my eyes and dropped my arms, dragging my feet as I followed her onto the immaculately clean elevator and leaned against the back wall next to her.

"How was Alaska?" I asked, grabbing the wooden beam that ran around the length of the elevator car and crossing my ankles.

"Great," she beamed, smiling up at me as she mimicked my position. "Kate and Irina say hello, by the way."

"When are they coming back out to visit?"

"Oh, please don't push it," she mumbled, shaking her head. "I love my sisters, but I just spent an entire month with them and my parents. I'm thankful to be back here alone for a while."

I laughed and nodded, slinging an arm around her shoulders as the elevator stopped and the doors opened. She reached inside her shirt and pulled out her key from its secure spot in her bra before wrapping her other arm around my waist and leading me down the familiar brightly lit hallway towards her apartment. She stuck the key in the door of apartment six-oh-five and walked in ahead of me, hooking her key onto the rack by the door and flipping on the lights.

Closing the door behind me, I toed off my shoes and yawned, walking out of the foyer and into the jewel-toned living room, flopping face first onto her royal blue couch and nuzzling my nose into the cushions. While she wasn't as stuck up as some of the other actresses in this town, Tanya definitely enjoyed her lifestyle. Everything she owned was top of the line and designer; from the underwear she bought to the furnishings in her home. She didn't think twice about dropping five thousand dollars on a dress she'd wear only once and while she always looked amazing, her spending habits made me cringe. The monthly rent for this apartment alone was more than what I'd paid in total for the cabin.

While I'd never had to actually want for much in my life, it still made me uncomfortable and nervous when I had something that was probably worth more than my life in my possession for a while.

I looked over when I heard her plop down what I could only assume was a beer bottle on the glass coffee table in the middle of the room and watched as she slid into the deep purple arm chair across from me.

"Start talking, boy," she demanded, toeing off her shoes and pulling her knees up to her chest.

"Where would you like me to start?"

I pushed myself up into a sitting position, reaching over and grabbing the Heineken off the table as I eyed her playfully.

"The last time we talked about this Bella girl, she was with someone and you had absolutely no dating inclinations towards her."

"Things changed," I said easily, shrugging as I lifted the bottle to my lips. "When I went back this time, she'd just broken up with her boyfriend and we started getting closer."

"So those sickeningly romantic looks you two were giving each other at your premiere weren't staged?" she smirked, leaning forward to rest her cheek on her upraised knees.

I rolled my eyes and smirked, shaking my head.

"No, they were the real thing. She's the real thing," I said softly, looking down at my hands and slowly starting to peel the label off the bottle with my thumbnail.

"So what's the problem?"

Ah, she knew me too well.

I looked back up at her and swallowed hard, lifting the bottle to my lips and tilting my head back.

"She doesn't deserve this," I blurted out as I held the bottle in my lap. "She's moving out here for me. She's leaving everything she knows and loves to move out here where she'll never have peace and quiet ever again. She says that she wants to be with me, but I don't think she understands just what that really _means_."

I set the bottle back onto the coffee table and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees and digging my hands into my hair.

"She is everything that I've ever wanted in a woman, Tanya. She's fucking perfect for me and I want to spend the rest of my damn life with her, but I don't want for her to have to deal with shit like we do all the time. She doesn't deserve that."

"Have you tried talking to her about this?"

"All she'll say is that she _knows_," I spat, tugging on my hair. "But you should've seen her face when we got off the plane yesterday… Tanya, she looked so damn scared that I didn't…"

"Okay," she said softly and I jumped when I felt her hand on my back, rubbing soothing circles there.

Christ, she could be quiet when she wanted to be. Now I know how Bella feels when I blindfold her.

"Would you like my opinion?"

"Fuck yes," I breathed, my hands still buried in my hair as I closed my eyes tightly.

"I don't know this girl and I've been in this business too long not to agree with some of the points you've made about her. But you two have been plastered on a hell of a lot of magazines since the night out you had at that club in New York and Alaska is really _not_ that amusing when your sisters are riding your ass about those small movie roles they auditioned for six months ago."

I snorted and shook my head slightly, wondering what in the hell _that_ had to do with anything else.

"I had the time to look at every single picture they published of the two of you together, Edward and let me tell you," she said softly, leaning in and resting her head on my shoulder, "that girl might have been terrified getting off the plane yesterday, but she loves you. I have never seen anyone you've dated before look at you the way that she does. And I'm willing to bet that she'd follow you to the ends of the Earth whether you wanted her to or not."

"But that's not my _problem_," I sighed, twisting slightly and looking over at her. "My problem is that I'm ruining her entire damn life."

"And I'm trying to tell you that she obviously doesn't care. If she's leaving everything she's always known to be with you on a more permanent basis, I'm pretty sure she doesn't give a fuck."

"But I do! Tanya, what if…?" I swallowed hard and jumped up to pace around. "What if she changes her mind?"

"I can't answer that and neither can you."

I stopped pacing to stuff my hands roughly into my pockets and glare at her.

"That's not helping."

"I'm just being honest with you, Edward. I don't know what'll happen in the future and neither do you. She wants to be with you and she's moving her entire life out here to do it. That's obviously a sacrifice she's willing to make and it's because she obviously loves you, you ass. So suck it up, stop bitching about it and analyzing everything too damn much and _enjoy it_." She threw her hands up in the air and laughed, shaking her head. "You seemed to have found what everyone in the damn world has been searching for so just _enjoy_ it."

I stared at her, my shoulders hunching forward as I pressed my lips together and ran her words over again in my mind.

She was right. She often was, but this time, she was _really_ right.

I'd found _her_. There were so many people wandering around, searching and hoping for _the one_ to fall into their laps and I'd already found her. I had her and she wanted to be with me, felt the same about me.

Knowing that didn't stop the guilt and mind-numbing fear racing through me at top speeds, but it did help a little.

"She's giving up so much," I managed, swallowing hard.

"Because she wants to be with you."

She reached forward and grabbed my beer bottle, lifting it to her lips and tilting her head back slightly.

"I'm not… all I'm doing is bringing her into…"

"I'm going to throw this at you," she threatened, tipping the bottle at me and raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not giving up anything."

"You're giving up being one of the fifty most eligible bachelors."

I pulled my hands from my pockets and rubbed them over my face.

"Dumbest excuse ever," I grumbled.

"But oh so true."

I dropped my hands and glared at her as she grinned at me, tapping her non-existent fingernails against the bottle.

"Being in a relationship is give-and-take, Edward. She's giving up her normal life to be with you and that's something that you need to take. When the time comes that you need to do the same for her, you'll remember this moment and not let her beat herself up over it. It's all about balance."

She spread her hands out at her sides and smiled serenely at me, tipping her head from side to side.

"So please listen to your own personal grand pooh-bah and get over here so that I can tell you all about how I'm going to seduce the new actor in town."

I rolled my eyes and trudged my way back to the couch, flopping down beside her and snatching the beer bottle back. She folded her legs underneath her and grinned over at me as she launched into the description of this new guy she'd seen at some point in the last twenty-four hours.

She needed more girl friends. While I would sit here and listen to her go on and on about how gorgeous this new guy around town was because she'd listened to me complain about my situation with Bella, I really didn't want to hear about how round and cute his ass was.

But I listened to her anyway, because that's just what friends do.

~*~

"Edward, wake up."

I nuzzled my cheek into the pillow, smiling softly.

"Ten more minutes, Bella."

I heard her laugh… only it wasn't _her_. Bella's laugh was always a little deeper than her speaking voice, spiked with occasional high notes. This laugh was high-pitched, extremely girly, and a little familiar.

Panic raced through me and I squeezed my eyes tightly together, my foggy brain trying to recall everything that had happened the night before.

The club, Victoria, James, Alec…

"Seriously," the voice said from beside me. "Your phone has been blowing up."

…Jane, Laurent – I'd needed to get away from them. And then Tanya…

Oh, Jesus, _thank you_, Tanya.

I relaxed and blew out a deep breath I hadn't realized that I'd been holding, my tense body immediately relaxing into the familiar contours of the couch I remembered being on last night.

We'd stayed up until some ungodly hour, catching up after she'd finished babbling on about this Garrett guy and I had obviously fallen asleep somewhere along the way.

My eyes snapped open and I was greeted with Tanya's khaki covered knees. I looked up at her and smiled sheepishly before yawning.

"You have a very annoying ring tone," she stated, absently reaching down to smack the back of my head.

"What is it?" I mumbled, sitting up and stretching my arms over my head.

"I believe," she started, handing me a dark green mug I assumed was filled with coffee once I'd lowered my arms, "it's _Where's the Love?_ by Hanson."

I smirked.

"Jeannie."

I shook my head once and sighed, bringing the mug to my lips and forcing myself to swallow the mud-like liquid she was passing off as coffee.

I forgot how horrible she was in the kitchen. I was bad in it myself, but at least I could make a pretty decent cup of coffee when it was called for.

She snorted and shook her head, grabbing a remote sitting on the coffee table and flicking on the television.

"Damage control, I'm sure," she sighed, flipping the channels until she reached _E!_ "It's already out, Edward."

My hands tightened around the mug as I watched Tanya and I disappear through her gate. I hadn't realized that one of them had a video camera.

"I should've woken you up." She looked down at me apologetically and I offered her a small smile. "I wasn't thinking."

"Neither was I." I set the mug down on the coffee table and stood up. "I'll call you later and we can go out for lunch or something?"

"I'll give you a ride," she shrugged, looking up at me. "I have a meeting out that way anyway."

I nodded, looking at the television again to see a picture of us walking arm-in-arm down the street.

"Thanks."

"I need to meet your girl when she gets back here, you know. Just so that she doesn't freak out on you about all of this."

I felt all the blood drain from my face and my knees buckled, landing me back on the couch.

Fuck. I hadn't thought about any of that. I was so used to being that way with Tanya – it was just the way we were – that it never really crossed my mind what Bella would think when she saw all of this. I was used to the paparazzi making a big damn deal out of it and had gotten used to it. I didn't like it, but it was a part of my life and I'd been dealing with it as much as I knew how to.

Bella wasn't used to this. Bella didn't know what I was like with Tanya. And I had a very strong feeling that Rosalie would make the worst out of it if Bella hadn't already.

"I have to—"

I jumped when my cell phone went off from its spot on the floor and dived for it, narrowly missing hitting my head on the edge of the coffee table.

"Jeannie," I mumbled before answering. "I need to call you back."

"You needed to be in my office half an hour ago," she immediately shot back.

"Okay, I'll be there but I have to go!"

I hung up on her, not wholly concerned with the wrath I'd deal with upon showing up in her office and looked at the time on the phone, cursing loudly.

It was nine-thirty here, meaning that it was twelve-thirty in New York. Bella was supposed to call me when she woke up. And frantically scrolling through my call log only told me that she hadn't done so yet.

She had to be awake now, right? She'd be fucking exhausted, but she had to go in to work this morning; she'd missed three days and I knew how her mind worked. She would've been up and at the store as soon as possible.

So why hadn't she called me?

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!

"Call her from the car!" Tanya exclaimed from the doorway.

I looked up, not realizing that she'd turned the television off and was on the move. I jumped up again, my legs feeling like gelatin as I walked over to her and slid into my shoes, following wordlessly as she walked out into the hallway.

I quickly dialed in the house number, practically bouncing in impatience as we waited for the elevator and growled when I heard the mechanical voice of the answering machine click onto the line.

"Emmett, pick up!" I demanded. "Get your ass up and answer this fucking phone!"

I waited and nearly screamed in frustration when he didn't – no one did. I hung up at the same time that the elevator doors opened.

"Calm down," Tanya said quietly, placing one hand on my arm and pushing the button for the underground parking garage as we walked onto the elevator car. "It'll be okay."

"She can't think that, Tanya. She can't," I shook my head, stuffing my phone into my pocket and reaching up to dig my hands into my hair. "And she will. If she doesn't, Rosalie will and she threatened to hang me up by my balls with fishing line. Tanya, I _can't_ screw this up."

"I think you need another three weeks of vacation."

"Oh, I'd love it," I mumbled, letting my hands fall from my hair to slam my head against the back of the elevator.

"You really do love her, huh?"

I merely rolled my head to the side, looking down at her and nodding.

"I really do. I don't know what I'd do without her."

"You'd find your way."

I raised an eyebrow at her and sighed, closing my eyes and rolling my head back, anxiously tapping my toes against the floor.

"But I wouldn't be the same person," I said quietly, slowly opening my eyes and staring up at the ceiling.

"You did tell her about me, didn't you?"

I nodded, sighing heavily.

"And she knows we're just friends?"

I nodded again.

"Then I doubt you've got anything to worry about."

"You don't know Rosalie," I grumbled, all but flying out of the elevator when it came to a stop and the doors opened.

I snatched my phone out of my pocket and quickly scrolled through the numbers to find her cell phone number, my footsteps echoing loudly as I pressed down on the button and placed the phone against my ear again. My heart started beating in overtime when it didn't even ring, instead going straight to her voicemail.

"Bella, please pick up the phone. Please talk to me," I begged, swallowing hard before ending the call and scrolling through my contacts again.

I found the number for the bookstore, vaguely listening to Tanya's heels behind me as I marched towards the parking spot that was hers. I quickly jammed my thumb onto the right button and placed the phone up to my ear.

"You really need to calm the fuck down!" Tanya yelled out behind me.

I waved her off, running my free hand through my hair.

"One More Time Books, Bella speaking. Can I help you?" she sighed.

"Bella!" I exclaimed, my voice echoing off the concrete pillars and floor as I reached Tanya's Mercedes.

"Hey. Can I call you back?"

My heart fell in my chest and it felt like my throat was closing up as my fingers tightened around my phone.

"What? Bella…"

"I'm swamped, Edward, I'm sorry. I'll call you back tonight."

"But I just…"

"_Bye_, Edward."

My heart stopped beating. I stopped breathing. My mouth fell open as I listened to the line click on the other end.

We never said _bye_.

She said _bye_.

Fuck it all, she said _**bye**_.

~*~

**There's another chapter! No threats please! Just click that little button off to the side on the bottom there… yes, there you go…**


	36. Breathe In Breathe Out

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

~*~

***Bella***

"What the hell is wrong with you, woman? You can't just go barging into other people's houses!"

I groaned, turning onto my side and grabbing the extra pillow next to me, clapping it over my head as I heard Emmett's booming, scratchy voice float up the stairs.

"Well maybe you shouldn't sleep naked!"

Oh Good Christ. I was going to kill the both of them.

Emmett and I had been here for a grand total of one damn day and when I wasn't up to my elbows in interviews, paperwork, boxes and trying to figure out what the hell to do with the shit still residing in my cabin, I was trying to mediate screaming matches between him and Rose. I'd had to call Angela and cancel dinner for the night, promising her that we'd all get together before I left and had made myself be satisfied with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. I hadn't had time to eat much of anything else.

For fuck's sake, I hadn't even been able to call Edward back and I missed him like fucking crazy. I'd been on the go – partially afraid that I'd fall asleep on my feet if I didn't keep moving – the minute the alarm went off that morning and hadn't had a chance to call him like I said I would. And when I did finally hear from him, he'd called at the worst possible time. I was in the middle of an interview, there was a line at the cash register that stretched almost all the way to the door and to top it all off, the toilet in the upstairs bathroom had magically broken.

Right after the supposedly innocent Emmett had gotten done with it.

I was _never_ bringing him anywhere with me ever again. Once I got to California, I was hiding from him if he ever decided to visit. This was absolute madness. He'd wanted to come visit me at work, claiming that I hadn't given him any specific instructions on what needed to be packed and that he was bored sitting by himself. I'd finally gotten him to leave after a few hours when I had the chance to write down an extremely detailed list of what I needed or wanted him to pack into boxes for me.

So by the time I'd been able to get a plumber out there to fix the toilet, it was nearing nine at night and I was exhausted. I'd barely been able to navigate my truck up the road and into the driveway while keeping my eyes completely open. I'd trudged into the house only to hear Rosalie's voice raised in a high pitched tone that clearly indicated that she was probably looking around for something to throw at him.

I'd spent another two hours convincing her that Emmett didn't mean any harm by asking her if she wanted to learn to play baseball the right way.

I don't understand why Emmett had let her in to begin with if all they'd been doing is arguing with each other, but really hadn't had the energy to ask after grabbing the knife block from Rosalie's hands and dragging her upstairs and into the bedroom to see what she wanted.

They were worse than children. And I sure as hell hoped that Edward didn't want any kids because the two of them had officially convinced me that I never wanted them.

"Well, it hasn't been an issue until now!"

"You're sleeping in the fucking living room! How has this not been an issue before?"

"I always hear Bella when she gets up! Christ, woman, would you go away so that I can get dressed?"

"Stop calling me _woman_! I have a name!"

"Yeah, and it _should_ be Pain in the Ass!"

Groaning again and rolling out of bed, I snatched the robe I'd found in Edward's closet and slung it over my shoulders, breathing in the faint scent of him before padding down the stairs, scratching the back of my head and sighing heavily.

"Rose," I grumbled as I reached the bottom of the stairs, peeking my head into the living room.

Emmett thankfully had a blanket wrapped tightly around his waist as he sat glaring at Rosalie from the couch and I relaxed, stepping into the room and raising an eyebrow at her. While I was thankful for his presence – mostly – I had no desire to see him naked.

"It's way too early for the two of you," I sighed, running a hand through my hair before wrapping both of my arms around my waist.

Hell, my alarm hadn't even gone off yet. Looking at the clock on the DVD player, I suppressed a groan when the neon green numbers told me it was only a little after six in the morning. I had half an hour more before I needed to actually be up and I didn't even want to think about everything that was waiting for me at the store.

"Well, I was on the treadmill this morning before having to get ready for work, innocently watching some entertaining television when I saw _this_," she started, still glaring at Emmett as she walked over to me and shoved a blank DVD in my face.

Blinking, I snatched the DVD from her and turned on the television and DVD player, shaking my head when I could almost _feel_ the two of them glaring at each other behind my back.

"Couldn't just tell me what it is, could you?" I grumbled, stepping back and sticking my hands into the pockets of the robe once it was loading.

"You wouldn't believe me anyway! I need some fishing line…"

I stilled all movement I was making and slowly looked over at her, swallowing hard. My heart picked up speed as she kept her eyes glued to the television screen, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Why?"

She merely stepped up to the DVD player and pushed the _play_ button before stepping to the side and crossing her arms over her chest again.

"What the fuck do you need fishing line for? I can't imagine you fishing," Emmett grumbled.

"I don't fish," she said tightly, glaring over at him again.

_"…and in other news, Edward Cullen is back in California and is wasting no time in getting reacquainted with some of his old friends."_

My head snapped back to the television when I heard the woman's voice float through the screen, innuendo and amusement laced in her words.

_"He was spotted leaving a popular, low-key nightclub in LA last night, arm-in-arm with Tanya Holden."_

A video of the two of them flashed up on the screen and I gritted my teeth, watching as they walked up a steep hill together. They were arm-in-arm, just as the announcer had said, and were walking close, their heads bent in towards each other and looking just… fucking perfect together.

_"When asked, he said they were just friends,"_ the annoyingly chipper brunette continued as she flashed back onto the screen, _"but he wasn't seen leaving her building at all last night. There are reports that they were very into each other and seemed completely in sync with one another."_

I swallowed hard and bunched my hands into fists, my jaw starting to ache and my heart echoing in my ears.

_"We all want to know, Edward, what happened to Bella?"_

I didn't realize that the choked, strangled sound I heard break the unnatural silence in the room was from me until I saw Rosalie walk up to me and hesitantly put her hand on my shoulder. The DVD flashed back to the menu and I continued to stare at it, swallowing convulsively as I tried to piece it all together in my mind.

"Bella, come on, you can't believe that," Emmett started. "Tanya is his _friend_ and that's it. He could've snuck out a back door or something."

"Has he ever before?" I asked through my teeth, staring hard at the little box of the brunette's face on the screen from the DVD menu.

"Maybe?"

"I'll buy the fishing line tonight, Bella."

"You will do no such thing," I said forcefully, pointing at her and keeping my eyes on the box of the woman who had just made this a really bad fucking day. "You're gonna go to work _right now_ and Emmett, you're going to get dressed."

"What are you gonna do?"

"Take a shower," I said, abruptly turning on my heel and starting back up the stairs.

"You can't just ignore this, Bella!" Rosalie shouted out behind me.

"It's not true anyway, so yes, she can!"

"Oh, shut up. You know nothing."

"He's my brother! I'm pretty sure I _know this_!"

"But you're here and he's there; you know _nothing_!"

"Go to work, Rose!" I shouted as I reached the top of the stairs. "I'll call you later!"

I slammed my way into the bathroom and leaned my back against the door, closing my eyes and taking as many deep breaths as I could manage in a short amount of time without hyperventilating and passing out.

We'd been over this; he'd clearly said that they were good friends so naturally, they'd hang out with each other while they could. Their lifestyle wasn't always conducive to friendly relationships between and a man and a woman so _of course_ the media would build it up and make it something that it wasn't.

But what if it was? What if it all was true? What if this was Edward's way of telling me that he didn't want to be with me anymore? Or his way of saying that he'd changed his mind on me moving out there with him?

"Bella?" I heard Emmett's voice on the other side of the door. "Why don't you just call him?"

I opened my eyes, slamming my head back against the door and taking a few more deep breaths.

"Because it's three in the morning in California," I answered quietly, really not caring too much if he didn't hear me, "and he's got a lot going on. He needs his rest."

"Can I tell you something?"

I rolled my eyes and moved my head from the door, reaching up to tangle my hands in my hair.

"Be my guest, Emmett."

"Edward has dated enough for our entire family to know when he's serious about her. We know the mannerisms, we know the quirks he has and can usually tell if the girl he's seeing is anything close to being serious. We hadn't seen any of that in a long time… until he came home for Christmas."

I sucked in a sharp breath and pressed my lips together, feeling my eyes water as I dropped my arms and looked up at the ceiling again.

"The way he'd talk about you or the way he'd act after he'd just gotten off the phone with you; we all knew that this was different for him. And when he saw those pictures of you, I thought he was gonna lose it."

I slid down the door, pulling my knees up to my chest and resting my elbows on them, leaning my head forward and tangling my hands in my hair again.

"Bella, he told our grandmother that he was going to marry you."

My heart beat painfully against my ribs and I bit down on my bottom lip, squeezing my eyes shut tightly and swallowing hard.

"And while he's never been opposed to marriage before, he's never mentioned anything about it with anyone else. Bella, Tanya is probably the closest friend he's got out there. And that's _all_ they are so _please_ don't listen to the television shows or Rosalie. You know how he feels about you. Don't doubt him."

I turned my head and took another deep breath, nodding.

"Thank you, Emmett," I said quietly before rubbing my hands over my face.

"Just think about what I said, all right?"

"I will."

I heard him tap on the door twice before I heard his retreating footsteps. With one more deep breath and using the heels of my hands to dig into my eyes, I pushed myself off the floor and stared in at the shower.

I could think about all of this later. Right now, I had a store to run and ten thousand things that needed to be done before I could even really _concentrate_ on what the fuck had just happened.

An hour later, I pulled into the parking lot of my store to find that there were now six different vans waiting in the parking lot and as soon as they spotted me, two guys from each van hopped out with cameras around their necks.

Twelve fucking men were standing in the parking lot of my business with cameras in their hands on the _worst_ fucking day possible and oh, I'd had my fill of _them_ already this morning.

Taking a deep, steadying breath and reminding myself that I couldn't give them any kind of ammunition to use for future news, I slowly grabbed my purse and slid out of the truck, tightly gripping my keys in my hands as I rounded the back.

I immediately heard camera shutters clicking as I walked into their line of sight and bit the inside of my cheek as I kept my gaze on the front door.

"Bella, are you and Edward still together?" one of them called out.

I ground my teeth together and barely looked over at them, nodding and glaring at the cement beneath me.

"We're perfectly fine."

"Did you see the pictures of him with Tanya? What do you think of that?"

"I think he was out with a friend and you morons made it worse than it was." I sucked in a deep breath and shook my head, holding up a hand to them. "I'm sorry," I apologized.

"We only take the pictures, sweetheart. Someone else writes the stories," a dark haired man said with a thick New York City accent as he kept snapping pictures of me.

"I apologize," I said again, nodding. "It's been a rough morning."

With that, I walked as quickly as I could down the rest of the pathway and hastily shoved the key into the lock, stumbling into the quiet store and immediately locking the door behind me.

I had a very great urge to sit in here all day, never unlock the doors and hide underneath my desk upstairs with my arms over my head as I tried to forget about everything that had already happened in my day.

Leaning back against the door and reaching up to run my hands through my air, I blew out a deep breath before pushing myself off and starting towards the stairs.

I couldn't hide. Not in the figurative or literal sense because I was out there. I was _romantically linked_ – as one of the fifty or so magazines that I'd seen in the racks of my own damn bookstore had said – to Edward Cullen and any hope of ever being normal or wanting to disappear and blend in with the rest of society was out of the question.

I pushed all the thoughts of Edward and Tanya and the paparazzi outside stalking the front door out of my mind as I shed my coat and set my purse underneath the desk once I'd reached my office, breathing evenly as I grabbed the first resume on the stack at my elbow and carefully smoothed it out in front of me.

I still had a business to run and damn it if I wasn't going to give it my full attention.

~*~

At two – when I finally had a little more than an hour without an interview scheduled – I rang out the last visible customer in the store and sat back in the chair to run my hands down my face.

I'd been successful in blocking out the Tanya and Edward situation for the majority of the day. Now that I'd sat back and was beginning to relax a little bit, however, it was all just _there_. Front and center in my mind, screaming at me and taunting me with all the little tidbits that I'd apparently been subconsciously coming up with all damn day.

Them lying in bed together, naked and tangled in expensive red silk sheets as they toasted my naiveté with expensive wine and boisterous laughter.

My heart broke and I felt sick to my stomach at the image my overactive imagination had brought to life and I leaned forward to rest my elbows on the desk and place my head in my hands.

But there was also a very big, rational part of my brain that said what Emmett had told me this morning was the truth. Edward had already told me that while yes, he and Tanya had dated for a short time, they'd managed to stay close friends when the relationship didn't work out. So being comfortable enough to walk down the street arm-in-arm with her was completely understandable and totally justifiable. If I had more guy friends, maybe I would've done the same thing with them.

Yet there was still that tiny, nagging, annoying as fuck voice inside of my head that kept saying that there was so much more to the story.

I'd never wanted to bash my head against the wall to shut it up more than I did _right now_.

Sitting back in my chair, I let my head roll back and reached up with one hand to tap my forehead as I stared at the upside down shelf of manuals behind me.

He loves me. I know he does and he'd never do anything like this to me. He wasn't that type of person and damn it, he _loves me_. Things don't feel this way; I don't _act_ this way when I know it's not there. And it's there – right in my face, taking over my life and making everything else shift to exactly where it's supposed to be.

He'd given me no rational reason to doubt him about anything, so why was I? Because some chipper brunette who was very intent on making my life miserable without knowing about it said that I needed to question everything he did?

Fuck her. She didn't know me. She didn't even know _him_ so why was I letting a few pictures and a story that definitely wasn't true get to me this way? And hell, this was only the beginning, I'm sure.

I'd need to toughen the hell up and trust him like I said I did because he deserved that. He deserved that from me and damn it, so do I.

Sitting up straight and immediately reaching over, I grabbed the phone with every intention of calling him to get this all out, over and done with.

But then the door opened.

I bit my bottom lip and stared longingly at the keypad on the phone before setting the receiver back in its cradle. Sighing, I looked up to find Sue strolling towards me with a very determined look on her face.

"Hey, Sue. Everything okay?" I asked, a little scared as she came to a stop right in front of the counter.

She silently pulled her leather gloves off her hands, watching me with a small smirk on her face as she set her purse and the newly freed gloves on top of the counter.

"I've been talking to your father," she started.

Oh, this couldn't end well.

"Okay," I said slowly when she continued to just stand there.

"We've decided that if you want me to and haven't found someone else already, I will take over the store for you when you're in California."

I blinked at her.

Did I hear her right? She was willing to take over for me? She wanted to run my store for me when I left?

_Bella, I think you're dreaming._

And oh, hell, that explained _so much_. The Tanya and Edward thing on television, Emmett and Rosalie bickering like two damn children; a dream would explain _all_ of it.

"But you're… Albany," I stumbled, still staring at her like a dumb struck moron when I realized that no matter how many times I blinked at her, she was still waiting for me to say something. So much for my dream theory. "That's so… far."

"Do you know what I do all day, Bella?" she asked, leaning forward and resting her hands, palm down on the counter.

"No," I said honestly, quickly shaking my head.

"Neither do I."

I blinked at her again.

"Oh."

"I input numbers into the computer for some company I've never heard of all damn day for reasons I don't know and I'm very tired of it," she sighed, bending down to rest her elbows on the counter and cradle her cheek in her hand. "I had a blast working here those two days and if you're willing to train me properly, I will be happy to take this off your hands."

"But you're still in Albany."

"An hour's drive is nothing." She stood up straight and waved her hand at me. "I wouldn't mind it in the least."

"But the winter weather…"

"I may not live here, but I do have friends that live here. Worse comes to worse, I can stay with them for a night or two. Bella," she started, rounding the counter and bending down in front of me to grab my face in her hands, "I want to do this for you… if you want me to, that is. I will find a way to work everything out as long as you go with your boy and be happy."

I let out a choked laugh before launching myself into her arms and hugging her tightly, burying my nose into her shoulder and closing my eyes tightly.

"We're really gonna miss you, Bella," she whispered into my ear, smoothing down my hair. "Make some time for us before you leave, okay?"

"Of course," I said quickly, nodding and backing away from her to wipe away the moisture that had gathered underneath my eyes. "Always, Sue."

"Why don't you go take a break or something? Get out and get something to eat?" she suggested, her hands on the sides of my head as she smirked at me. "There are two vans outside but for the most part, it seems like they're the same guys that have been here all along."

"There were six vans this morning," I laughed, shaking my head and taking a deep breath. "I called them morons."

She laughed and leaned forward to kiss my forehead.

"Good for you. Now go on; get out of here for a while. I'll watch after everything."

I hugged her tightly again before dashing up the stairs and grabbing my purse and coat. I waved a hasty goodbye to her as I threw my coat on around my shoulders and ran down the path, completely ignoring the two guys still standing out there as they snapped my picture before I jumped into my truck and backed out.

I had a phone call to make, damn it, and nothing was going to get in my way.

I made it back home in record time, barely slamming my truck into park before I was jumping out of it and leaping up the porch stairs. I barged in through the door to find Emmett sitting on the couch with a sandwich halfway to his mouth, looking away from the blaring television to raise an eyebrow at me.

"You're home early."

"Break!" I yelled out behind me as I dropped my purse on the ground, slammed the door shut and skid into the dining room to grab the phone.

"Edward called. Bella, he's—"

"I'm on it!" I exclaimed, grabbing the phone and hastily dialing in his cell phone number.

I paced around the dining room, impatiently playing with the zipper on my coat as I waited for him to pick up the phone. I stopped and stepped into the living room again, raising an eyebrow at Emmett.

"Why aren't you packing?" I demanded.

He sighed wearily, shaking his head as he stuffed the rest of the sandwich into his mouth.

"You… talk to him," he grumbled around it.

I rolled my eyes and resumed my pacing in the dining room, running my free hand through my hair.

"Emmett, I already told you," he started as he _finally_ answered the phone.

"Edward!" I all but screeched, coming to a halt and smiling like an ass as I heard his voice.

Christ, how I'd missed his voice.

"Bella?"

"Yes, Edward and listen…"

"Bella, you have to let me explain."

"No, Edward, you don't…"

"I fell asleep!" he exclaimed and I heard the panic in his voice. "Nothing happened! We were talking and I just fell asleep and I wasn't thinking about anything that I did while I was doing it and I didn't mean anything by it!"

I bit my bottom lip, still smiling like an idiot as I stared at the base of the stairs and did a stupid little twirl in the middle of the dining room.

I was _right_.

"It's okay."

"I saw those pictures of you from this morning and I just… Bella, I would _never_ do that to you and I know you're mad and it's—"

I stood up straight as I heard a detached voice on his end of the phone announcing something that sounded suspiciously like a _flight_.

"Where are you?" I demanded, squaring my shoulders.

"I'm coming home and I'm gonna make this right with us. I told Jeannie…"

My heart sank.

Oh, no. No, he can't do this. He _didn't_ do that.

"You _what_?" I screeched.

"I told Jeannie this morning that I quit. Bella, I'm on my way home and we're gonna work this out. We're gonna be fine."

"Edward Cullen, turn your ass around, get in a cab and go back to her office to tell her that you were not serious."

"But Bella…"

"I mean it! I told you that you weren't quitting and damn it, I meant that. You are _not_ giving that up."

"I'm not losing you!"

"What the hell made you think that you lost me? Jesus Christ, Edward," I groaned, smacking my hand over my face and shaking my head.

Stupid, god damned, overdramatic jackass jumping to conclusions and running to the airport for no good fucking reason…

"You said _bye_," he all but whispered, his voice nothing but sheer heart break and I felt my stomach clench upon hearing it.

Even though he'd confused me pretty damn thoroughly with that statement.

"What?"

"You said that you'd call me back later and then you said _bye_."

I swallowed hard, my heart beating painfully against my ribs as I placed a hand on my chest and shook my head slowly.

I hadn't even realized it. I didn't even know that I'd said that to him. We _never_ said that; it was our unspoken rule and with all the craziness that was going on in the store yesterday, I'd slipped. And now I could completely understand that hopelessness I was hearing in his voice.

"Edward, I didn't…"

"And I know you're mad and upset! I get that," he said and I flinched when I heard his voice crack. "But it wasn't anything like what they're saying, Bella. Please, you have to believe me."

I swallowed hard again and closed my eyes tightly, licking my lips.

"I was doing too much at once and I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I wasn't thinking. I didn't even see any of this until this morning."

"You're not mad?"

"Not anymore."

"But you _were_," he accused.

I tapped my toes against the floor and licked my lips, shaking my head and wondering what in the hell had been wrong with me when I decided that I wanted a relationship again.

Honestly, he expected me to trust him and I did. I'd been paranoid and hurt and pissed off, but I'd finally come to the right conclusion. So shouldn't he trust me not to freak out over something that he'd warned me of all that time ago? Shouldn't he have more faith in me than that?

"Bella? Are you there?"

"I was upset," I corrected softly, "but then I realized that you loved me and you'd never do anything like this to me."

He was quiet and I could hear another garbled flight announcement being made as I opened my eyes.

"I don't deserve you," he finally said.

I twisted my lips to the side and raised an eyebrow at the last step on the staircase, trying in vain to bite my tongue and not make this crazy situation any worse than it already appeared to be.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I am a little annoyed that you didn't trust in _me_ enough."

He was quiet again and I began pacing once more, running my free hand through my hair and listening to Emmett scoff at whatever the hell he was watching on television.

"We knew this wasn't going to be easy for either of us and if this is really going to work, you need to trust that I'm not going to jump to conclusions about everything that the paparazzi catch you doing."

"I'm just… you didn't call… and then you didn't call _back_…"

"Edward, I love you," I said quietly as I finally stopped pacing and sat down at the dining room table. "And you really need to get that through your thick head."

"I know you do, but I'm just… I keep thinking that I'll wake up and you'll be gone."

"I told you that I'd stalk your ass and I meant it. I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"Is it?"

I sucked in a deep breath and nodded, dropping my hand to trace the wood grain patterns of the table top.

"It will be."

"I miss you."

I smiled a little, watching my fingertip as it rounded a circle and bit my bottom lip.

"I miss you too. Now get out of that airport and go tell Jeannie that you were kidding. And then call me so that I know she didn't kill you."

He laughed, but it was clearly forced.

"Edward."

"I hurt you. I saw it in those pictures."

"I'm _fine_."

"And I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing," I demanded.

"I didn't want to hurt you."

"I know."

"Please just let me come home," he begged.

"Edward, you _are_ home," I sighed, shaking my head.

"No, home is where you are and if you're in New York, then that's where I need to be, too."

"Well, I'm not gonna be here for long, you know."

"But you're there _now_ and I want to see you so that I can make this right."

"Edward, you have a job… how many things are you missing right this minute?"

"None; I don't have a job, actually. I quit, remember?"

"So help me, Edward, if you don't call her or go see her to tell her that you weren't being serious, I really never will come back."

"Don't you understand that you're more important to me than what I do for a living? I could be a hobo living on the street, but as long as I had you in our cardboard box for the night, I wouldn't care!"

"We'll be living in a cardboard box?" I asked, pressing my lips together to hold in laughter.

Nothing about this conversation was really all that funny, but honestly, the thought of Edward Cullen sleeping on the streets in a cardboard box was just pretty fucking hysterical.

"Or on a park bench."

I barked out a laugh, relieved when I heard him laughing with me.

"We're fine," I said quietly when we had both stopped laughing. "And we're still gonna be fine when I come back to California next week."

"Bella…"

"Go talk to Jeannie, please. You've got too much on your plate to deal with and you would feel really bad if you gave the poor woman a heart attack."

"Fine," he sighed heavily. "I'll call her."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," he grumbled.

I smiled and shook my head, running my free hand through my hair again.

"I'll call you when I get home from work, all right?"

"Yeah."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"Okay," I smiled softly, dropping my hand into my lap.

"Okay."

I waited until I heard the tell-tale click on the other end of the line before hanging up the phone and standing up. I set it back in its cradle before walking into the living room to find Emmett sprawled out on the couch in much the same fashion that he'd been when I ran in.

"You two good?" he asked, barely flicking his eyes away from the television.

"We're good."

He nodded once and I rolled my eyes, quickly walking by the television and reaching down to grab my purse again.

"Pack, Emmett, please," I said as I put my hand on the door. "I want everything ready to go before the end of next week."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll do it."

I rolled my eyes again, sighing heavily and wondering where the hell the guy who had given me advice this morning had disappeared to. I think I liked _him_ more than the blob of man sitting on the couch at this point.

~*~

Five hours later, I pulled into the driveway once again, exhausted and more than ready for the day off Sue had insisted I take tomorrow.

I'd run down the basics with her when I got back and she'd all but demanded that I leave her alone so that she could figure it all out as quickly as possible. I'd watched over her shoulder as she filled out request forms, rang out customers, even handled a completely pointless interview, handled shipment statements with ease and wanted to kiss her when it seemed that she'd done a better job than I had.

She was making my life entirely too easy and I loved her for it.

When the store had closed, I'd walked her through the closing procedure while she'd wordlessly packed up a few of my things from my desk and handed them to me in a box, grinning wildly.

And while I was ecstatic that I had finally found someone that I could trust enough to run the bookstore, it was still a little bittersweet. I'd poured my heart and soul into this place for quite a long time and it almost felt like I was losing a best friend.

But I was gaining the love of my life and really didn't have it in me to complain too much about it.

Grabbing the box from the passenger seat of my truck, I sighed and pushed open the truck door before sliding down from it and kicking it shut with my foot.

I hoped to hell that Emmett had packed some of the shit in the kitchen like I'd wanted him to because I really didn't have the energy to do much else. Yes, the workload for the day had been lessened significantly with Sue helping me, but there were also a hundred other things that I needed to do.

Like selling my house and figuring out what I was going to do with my truck, for instance.

Walking up the porch steps, I shook my head and awkwardly managed to grab the door knob, twisting it and kicking that open as well. I dropped the box to the floor, looking around the empty living room and listening closely.

There was rustling coming from upstairs and I reached up to rub the heels of my hands into my eyes, taking a deep breath as I kicked the door shut.

What in the fuck was he doing upstairs in what was probably the bedroom? I'd specifically told him that he didn't need to touch anything in there; I'd take care of it.

There were just certain things that Emmett did _not_ need to see – like my underwear, for example.

"Emmett!" I groaned out, pulling my arms from my coat and draping it over the rocking chair next to me. "What are you doing up there?"

Silence.

"Seriously! The kitchen, Emmett, that was all I asked you to do!"

I finally heard him making his way out of the bedroom and shook my head before walking through the living room and into the kitchen to start something that resembled dinner for the both of us.

I heard his footsteps on the stairs and yanked open the door to the nearly-bare refrigerator, pursing my lips and staring in at the bottled water that never really seemed to go away and a few leftover Chinese take-out cases from the night before.

"Leftovers good with you?"

I didn't wait for an answer before grabbing two of the cartons and standing up. I heard his footsteps in the dining room, moving closer and turned around, staring at the doorway to wait for him to show up and give me the smart ass comment I'm sure was coming.

He'd been quiet for entirely too long.

My mouth dropped open and the cartons fell from my hands when I saw Edward appear in the doorway, his shoulders hunched, his hands in his pockets and a nervous smile gracing his lips.

"Uh," I squeaked, blinking rapidly at him.

Now I knew I was dreaming. I'd just talked to him five hours ago and I was pretty sure that he would've mentioned something like getting ready to show up here.

"I was already in Albany when you called," he explained quietly.

Then again, maybe not.

"You…"

"I needed to see you. Waiting wasn't an option anymore."

"You just…"

"I called Jeannie," he offered quietly, ducking his head down a bit and shuffling his feet uncomfortably. "She said that I couldn't come back without you."

I blinked at him.

"I've been so preoccupied with thoughts of actually losing you that I fucked up an entire photo shoot. Just sat there and stared at the camera." He offered me a small, unrealistic smirk and shrugged one shoulder. "The photographer said it was the most depressing shoot he'd done in his entire career."

"You…"

"She said that I could only get my job back if you were with me when I showed up in California again. Until then, she's rearranging everything I have to do."

"Edward, you can't just…"

"I was sure that I'd lost you," he said softly, looking down at his feet. "That I'd fucked everything up and you didn't want anything to do with me anymore. It was the absolute worst feeling in the world."

He looked up at me again and I sucked in a sharp breath, pulling my bottom lip in between my teeth.

He looked so _lost_ and defeated and I'd never seen him this way. He wasn't ever supposed to look that way; I wasn't supposed to be the one to make him look like that.

"Tanya's the only person I can consider a real friend out there," he continued quietly, looking back down at the floor. "And we just act that way with each other. It doesn't mean anything; it's just the way we are. I didn't think about it the way that I should've and I'm sorry, Bella."

"Where's Emmett?" I asked quietly.

He hunched his shoulders a little more, almost as if he wanted to curl into himself and disappear. My throat tightened at the movement.

Sure, the first full sentence I'd managed since I'd seen him and it was about his brother. Great idea, Bella.

"Rosalie showed up and I made them both get out for a while."

"You do know that they're probably going to kill each other, right?"

"Not something I'm overly concerned with right now," he answered softly, still staring down at the floor. "Bella, please tell me if there's a way to fix this."

"There's nothing to fix."

He visibly flinched and I shook my head at the both of us.

First of all, this distance between us was absolute madness. I shouldn't be standing on one end of the room with him on the other; no. It didn't work that way. _We_ didn't work that way.

Second of all, hadn't I already told him that we were fine? That phone call did really happen, didn't it?

Christ, I wish I knew if I was dreaming or not because this entire damn day had just been one big mind-fuck and I was _really_ fucking tired of it.

Stepping over the spilled fried rice and dumplings, I closed the gap between us and wrapped my arms tightly around his waist, closing my eyes and resting my head on his chest. I kept my grip around his waist until I finally felt his arms around me loosely, as if he was afraid to touch me.

I turned my head, gently pressing a kiss over his heart through his shirt as I started to drag my fingernails up and down his back.

"We've already been over all of this, Edward," I said softly, resting my chin on his chest and looking up at him.

"I wanted to say it to you, not a phone." His hands were shaking as he put them on my cheeks. "I've never felt this way for anyone before, Bella, and the thought of losing you…"

He closed his eyes and bent down to rest his forehead against mine. I continued to drag my fingernails up and down his back, staring at his closed eyes and waiting for them to open again.

"It's put everything in perspective, I guess. Acting isn't important if you're not going to be there with me."

"But I am," I whispered, stepping up on my toes and gently brushing the end of my nose against his. "Trust in me, Edward, please."

"I'm sorry."

"Stop it."

"Bella…"

"Look at me," I whispered, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt.

He slowly opened his eyes and looked down into mine.

"We're going to make mistakes and we're going to screw up because we're _human_ and it's what we do. But it won't be the end of the world and it won't be the end of us. You're too important to me and I'm not going to lose you."

"I can't screw this up," he whispered, shaking his head.

"I won't let you."

He started brushing his thumbs over my cheeks and underneath my eyes, his breathing ragged as he threaded his fingers back into my hair.

"I'm just… I'm so scared that I'll do something that will have you running the other way without a second glance and I can't handle that, Bella."

"If I can stick with you through your cooking," I started, thankful when I saw the corners of his mouth twitch up a little, "then I'll stay through anything."

"Do you forgive me, Bella?"

"Oh for Christ's sakes, Edward, there's nothing to forgive," I laughed, shaking my head. "You hung out with a friend and yeah, okay, it looked bad at first and everything else just kind of snowballed from there, but it's _okay_."

I moved my hands from his shirt, placing one over his heart and the other on his neck.

"Human, remember?"

He moved his hands from my face, quickly wrapped them around my waist and _finally_ held me as tightly as he always should before his lips found mine, urgent and hungry. I wrapped my arms around his neck, my hands sliding into his hair as I stepped forward and pressed myself against him completely.

Eventually, the urgency faded and he placed a few soft kisses against my top lip, his arms still tight around me as he pulled away from me.

"I love you," he whispered, leaning up and gently kissing my forehead.

I untangled my hands from his hair and stepped up on my toes to hug him tightly, burying my nose into his neck and smiling.

"I love you too."

"Guess we've got a lot to talk about, huh?"

I nodded, placing a soft kiss against his neck before stepping down and looking up at him.

"Yeah, like why the hell you didn't tell me that you were in Albany when I called and why in the _fuck_ did you ask me to come home when you were already on your way?"

He laughed nervously and shrugged, twisting his lips to the side.

"I wanted you to say that you were okay with it," he mumbled, shrugging again. "I wanted to know that you still… wanted me."

"We do have a lot to talk about," I whispered, reaching around to place my hand on his cheek.

He nodded, turning his head and placing his lips against my palm.

"I want to spend a lot of time here, Bella," he said softly, his hands absently tangling in the ends of my hair as he turned to look down at me again. "It's still your home and you do still have a life here. I don't want to take everything away from you."

"You're _not_ taking everything away from me."

"I'm taking enough."

I sighed heavily and tilted my head at him, gently running my thumb down the bridge of his nose.

"It was partly my decision, too."

"Would you have left here if I wasn't in your life?"

"Would I have had a life if I didn't have you?"

"It'd be quieter."

"It'd be boring."

"I love it here, too," he whispered.

I sighed again and swallowed the points we'd end up going over at some point during the night and let him have this… for now.

"Then I guess we'd better figure out a way to make that happen, huh?"

He nodded and leaned down to kiss me again before grabbing one of my hands and leading me out of the kitchen. He grabbed the phone from its charger and started up the stairs with me trailing behind him.

"Wait!" I exclaimed, tugging on his hand.

"What?"

"I dropped food."

I let go of his hand and ran back down the stairs, hearing his footsteps behind me and screeching when he caught me around the waist to lift me from the floor.

"Go upstairs," he whispered into my ear, placing a kiss against my neck. "I'll clean it up."

He handed me the phone and let me go, walking around me and grabbing the broom and dustpan from the corner next to the refrigerator. I bit my bottom lip and smiled softly, wrapping my arms around myself before turning on my heel and starting back up the stairs.

He came for me. I'd never had anyone chase after me before.

No one had loved me as much as he did.

Yeah, we had a lot to talk about and a lot of decisions to make concerning our future, but that's just it; it was _our future_.

And it felt fan-fucking-tastic to know it.

~*~

**See? Got it all under control.**

**Now I'm gonna gush.**

**To all the girls at the Twilighted boards; you're amazing and you keep me entertained when I'm having lulls in the whole writing process.**

**To Angie, again, who keeps me in line and helps me make wedding plans.**

**And of course, to everyone who continues to read and review and recommend and just be an amazing group of people who support and love this story as much as I do; I owe you all so much.**

**A few more chapters to go and then this story will officially be finished. Thank you all again!**

**Oh, and the song for this chapter is Breathe In Breathe Out by Mat Kearney.  
**


	37. Chapter 37

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**So… *sighs* This is the last official chapter, my loves. This one and then the epilogue… which I will be posting when I return from work tomorrow night. I'm about to fall asleep on the keyboard as it is.**

**Gushing at the bottom; go read!**

~*~

***Edward***

"You are a _thousand_ times worse than Jasper could ever even _think_ about being!"

I groaned and turned on my side, reaching out with one arm to find cold sheets next to me instead of the warm little body that should've been there.

"Fuck you," I grumbled. "Where's she?"

"She had errands to run and left me here alone with you."

He plopped onto the bed next to me and I groaned in pain, quickly wiggling my arm out from underneath him and opening one eye to look up at him.

"I hate you."

"Mhmm, I know," he said conversationally, leaning back against the headboard and crossing his arms over his chest. "And like I said, you're worse than Jasper could even aspire to be."

"Where the fuck were you all night anyway?" I grumbled, rolling onto my back and covering my face with my arms. "Bella and I were up until four."

"I don't need to hear about your sexcapades."

Oh, if only that were true.

"You were put on this earth to torment me, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"What do you want?" I whined. "Emmett, I've got a shit ton to do today."

"You are not still in California. You are in New York, patching things up with your woman and really, you have nothing to do today."

"Shouldn't you be packing something?"

"Packing's done."

"What?"

"Yep. Everything that she needed packed is done. She's just tying up all her loose ends or some shit like that."

"Oh."

"I, unlike you, have actual plans," he continued, his voice light and, if I wasn't mistaken, extremely fucking happy.

"What plans do you have? You don't know anyone!"

"I know Rose."

I slowly lowered my arms from my eyes, opening both of them to look up at him and see the shit-eating grin on his face. Like he'd just won the fucking lottery or some shit.

I knew that look.

"Oh my God," I moaned, shaking my head and turning my back to him to pull the pillow over my head. "You two hated each other, I thought. How did this happen?"

"Hey, I saved your ass from the fishing line, bro. Some thanks would be nice."

"Get out of my bed," I groaned, doing my best to smother myself with the pillow.

"I was supposed to wake you up three hours ago."

"Well, I'm up. Now will you get out?"

"Yes, because Rose will be here in about an hour to pick me up and I need to get ready."

"Now who's pathetic?"

I ended up on the floor when Emmett pushed on my back, successfully hitting my head on the buckle from my belt that I'd left on the floor last night.

"Oh I hate you so much," I mumbled, rubbing the back of my head.

"I know this. We're all doing dinner tonight. Her father and step-mother and Rose and Angela and Ben want to say goodbye to her."

"Okay," I grumbled, still rubbing the back of my head as he peeked over the edge of the bed and grinned down at me. "_What_?"

"You are beyond whipped."

I glared at him.

"You learn what's important real damn quick when you fuck up," I grumbled, sitting up and resting my elbows on my knees.

"She actually handled it pretty well, you know. She didn't freak out like I figured she would've."

"She's stronger than you give her credit for."

"I'm finding that out." And then his hand was on my head, roughly shoving it back and forth. "Grow some balls, though. Damn. She was still telling me to pack when she got off the phone so she was obviously going back to you."

I roughly shoved his arm away and glared up at him again.

"I didn't hear from her for an entire day, Emmett. I was running out of options."

He sat up, shaking his head as he crawled off the bed and smirked at me.

"You need to have some faith in her, too, man."

With that, he walked out of the room and left me glaring after him. Bella and I had had this discussion last night and I was _aware_ of that. She had every right to be upset that I was the one who immediately thought that she'd blow everything out of proportion and it was something that I promised to work on.

It wasn't easy trying to rid my brain of the natural responses that the other girls had when I'd dated them. Yes, Bella was different in all the right ways, but after an entire year of this happening with most of my relationships, it was _really hard_ to let go of it.

But I'd meant it when I said that the possibility of actually losing her had put everything into perspective for me.

I'd told her that I wasn't doing more than one movie a year and after a lot of arguing about it, she'd finally agreed to it. She'd countered with opening her own bookstore and hiring enough people that she could really trust to run the store so that she could still travel with me when she wanted to even though I half-heartedly insisted that she didn't need to.

She insisted on meeting Tanya, which I wholeheartedly agreed with and I promised to stay as far away from Victoria as possible once Bella had confided that she was uncomfortable around her.

It wasn't such a huge sacrifice to begin with.

We still had a long way to go and we knew that everything was going to be different again once we were back in California, but we felt _stronger_ this time. I'd felt connected and tied to her before, but after last night, it was all so much _more_.

We'd gotten everything out in the open and even though we might not have liked certain points of the entire conversation, at least we were fully aware of how we each felt about _everything_.

She didn't like the crowds and wasn't sure she could ever really get used to them. I didn't like how she downplayed everything she felt when she knew it would hurt my feelings.

They were small things, but now we both _knew_ everything. They were things that we could work on over time and we could do it together.

"Edward?" I heard her voice float through the doorway and immediately looked over the bed.

She was standing in the doorway, one hand running through her hair and the other on her hip as she looked around the room. She was wearing a simple white t-shirt and a pair of old torn jeans, but she looked perfect.

"Bella," I breathed, grabbing onto the edge of the mattress and pulling myself up.

Yeah, all right, I spent all of last night and a good portion of this morning with her, but I'd woken up without her. And hell, every time I saw her, it was like a weight had been lifted off of my chest and I was… well, whole again.

She smiled over at me, tilting her head before walking over and draping her arms over my shoulders.

"Why were you on the floor?"

"Emmett," I grumbled, grabbing her around the waist and hugging her tightly.

She laughed softly and buried her face in my chest, her arms tight around my neck.

"My house is up for sale," she said quietly, resting her cheek on my chest and absently trailing her fingertips up and down my spine.

"Is that a good thing?"

She nodded, backing away to look up at me and smile.

"It's a very good thing."

I leaned down and kissed her softly.

"Sue and my dad are going to take my truck tonight after dinner so that nothing happens to it," she continued when I pulled back from her, "and Angela said she'd check on the house if you wanted her to. Just to make sure that everything is okay while we're gone."

"It probably wouldn't be a bad idea, huh?"

She shook her head and I reached up to brush hair off of her forehead before placing a small kiss there.

"What about the things you had left in your house? What did you do with them?"

"There's a thrift store down the road." She shrugged a shoulder and stood up on her toes to kiss the bottom of my chin. "They were more than happy to take a chair and my television."

"When did you have plans of flying out?" I asked softly.

"I made arrangements this morning for us to leave on the twelfth. Rose and Angela want me to go out on Friday and I'll need a few days to recover from that."

I nodded, already mentally trying to figure out what it is that I could do for an entire night. She deserved to have one more night out with her girlfriends before she disappeared to California with me.

"You're coming with us," she whispered, leaning up to kiss me softly.

"Are you sure?"

She nodded, smiling at me.

"It's the last chance we'll all get to be together on a Friday night. You've gotta come with us."

"All right."

She smiled and kissed me again, her eyes shining brightly up at me as she bounced up on her toes a few times. I laughed and shook my head at her before sucking in a deep breath and briefly pressing my lips together.

"I know that you've answered this already, but Bella, are you _sure_?"

She reached in between us to grab the sides of my face, bringing my head down so that we were nose-to-nose.

"I want to start our life together, Edward," she said softly, "and I want to do it as soon as possible."

I slid my hands down her sides, grabbing onto the back of her thighs and lifting her up. She quickly wrapped her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck, our eyes locked the entire time as we moved and shifted.

"I love you, Bella," I whispered, leaning forward and brushing my lips against hers.

"I love you too."

We'd said it more times than I could possibly imagine in the past twenty-four hours and every time, I still got a small thrill running down my spine from it.

"Shower with me?"

She smiled and nodded, kissing me softly.

"I already took one this morning but I guess I can never be too clean."

I laughed and kissed her again, carefully starting to walk towards the bedroom door with her in my arms and my lips on hers.

As long as I didn't run us into the wall, we were good.

"Oh, seriously?" Emmett screeched from the bottom of the stairs as I walked us into the hallway. "At least wait until I'm out of the house!"

"My house," I managed before walking into the bathroom. "Do what I want."

Bella laughed and reached out, slamming the door behind us.

Oh yes. This was a _damn_ good way to start out the day.

~*~

Bella pulled up to the huge pale yellow mansion set back off of the road a few hours later and I gaped up at it, completely awestruck that something like _this_ existed in Lake George, New York.

It had to be at least three stories high with a wrap around balcony on the second floor, long windows extending from the bottom floor to the second with crystal chandeliers clearly visible through them. I could see Rosalie and Emmett in the living room, wrapped up in each other and probably still arguing with each other because he was literally squirming in her arms.

He was gone by the time Bella and I had gotten out of the shower and since we'd only been wrapped up in one very large towel, it was probably a hell of a lot better that way.

"She lives here alone?" I managed, looking wide-eyed over at Bella.

She laughed and nodded, shrugging as she turned the truck off and opened her door.

"Rose likes the finer things in life."

"Well then I have absolutely no idea what the hell she sees in Emmett," I grumbled as I opened my door and stepped onto the snowy driveway.

It had started snowing when Bella and I had been in the shower earlier and while the news had said that we weren't expecting any big snow storms anytime soon, the ground was already covered in a thin blanket of it. I didn't even want to think about what would happen if it got any worse out.

Bella laughed and rounded the front of the truck, coming up next to me and linking her fingers with mine as she led me up the walk and towards the intricately detailed front door.

"I honestly didn't think they'd even get to this point. You should've heard them, Edward, I swear to you," she laughed again, shaking her head. "They made me want to swear off children."

I looked over at her, raising an eyebrow as I quickly shook my hand from hers and wrapped my arm around her waist.

"You still feel that way?"

She smiled and shook her head, standing up on her toes to kiss me quickly.

"No."

"Good," I mumbled, kissing her again. "Because I want babies and I want babies with you."

"When the time's right."

I nodded and smiled, backing away from her to brush the end of my nose against hers.

"Not tomorrow."

She laughed again and shook her head, kissing me once more before placing her hand on the doorknob and twisting.

"Not tomorrow."

I followed her into the open room and followed her lead as she toed off her shoes and hung up her coat on the rack beside the door. They were clearly oblivious to our arrival and when I heard Emmett moan, I closed my eyes tightly.

"Please, dear _God_," I whispered, looking up at the ceiling.

Bella looked behind her and pressed her lips together in an attempt not to laugh before reaching out and grabbing my hand in hers.

"Hi guys!" she shouted, leading us further into the room.

They both jumped and stopped attacking each other but didn't move from the other's arms. Rosalie looked annoyed, glaring at me while Emmett just looked like an idiot.

A happy idiot, but an idiot with a comically large grin on his face despite the situation.

"I see all was forgiven," Rose said coolly, finally stepping away from Emmett to incline her head regally in my direction.

I inwardly sighed and squeezed Bella's hand, watching as Emmett made himself very comfortable on one of the cream colored couches behind him.

"Don't you dare start," Bella said quietly, pointing to her with her free hand. "It was a misunderstanding."

She sniffed before turning on her heel and storming into the kitchen. Sighing, Bella shook her head and stepped up on her toes to kiss my cheek gently.

"I tried telling her, Bella," Emmett said casually, draping one arm over the back of the couch and shrugging his shoulders. "But she wouldn't listen to me."

"She's never listened to you, Emmett," she sighed, shaking her head again. "Why would she start now?"

"You don't wanna know."

He wiggled his eyebrows and I felt the shiver pass through Bella and into me before she kissed my cheek again and disappeared after Rosalie.

Shaking my head, I slowly made my way towards Emmett, sitting down on the couch next to him and looking around suspiciously for anything resembling a spool of fishing line.

"You're safe. I made her promise that she wouldn't try to kill you tonight. Threatening you, however, is completely allowed."

I glared over at him and he shrugged innocently, grinning.

"It was the most I could do."

"Which also means that it was probably the very least that you could do, right?"

"She's very persuasive!"

"Mhmm," I mumbled, smirking and shaking my head as I leaned back on the couch and closed my eyes. "I'm sure she is."

"Enjoy your shower?"

"Very much, thank you."

"You can't really still be tired, Edward."

"You weren't woken up by an annoying older brother comparing you to your brother-in-law, were you?"

"I can't wait to tell everyone about this."

I heard him clap his hands and rub them together and I rolled my eyes, opening them and leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees.

"I did what needed to be done," I finally said quietly, sparing him a glance. "And it worked out for the best."

"You're still so beyond whipped that I'm gonna be talking about this for years to come."

I reached up and rubbed my forehead with my fingertips, shaking my head and sighing heavily.

"I really hate you."

"Yeah, I'm used to that."

We both looked up when the front door opened and I tensed even more – if at all possible – when I saw Angela and Ben walk in, snow in their hair and laughter on their lips.

If Rose hated me, I didn't even want to _think_ about what Angela thought of me right now. Sure, she offered to check on the house while we were gone, but it was probably just in favor to Bella. I hadn't heard much of her side since arriving, but I could only imagine that she would be about as happy to see me as Rosalie was.

"Ben! Dude!" Emmett exclaimed, jumping off the couch and walking over to them.

I didn't know how they knew each other already, and shook my head to clear it. That wasn't something that I was really all that concerned about at the moment.

I swallowed hard and wiped my suddenly sweaty palms off on my jeans before standing up.

"Rose, it was a damn misunderstanding and nothing _happened_! Stop this!" I heard Bella yell from the kitchen.

I heard Emmett and Ben talking about something involving sports as they continued to stand in the doorway and I looked down at my feet, not willing to look over at Angela to see the purely disgusted look on her face.

Maybe I should've stayed home. This was for Bella and I didn't even ask if I was included in all of this. I could've made a few calls that needed to be taken care of before we went back to California. Or, hell, I could've called my mother. Anyone, really. I even would've called Jeannie back to listen to her scream at me for my dumb ass running off on her if it meant that I didn't have to be the ass who ruined a goodbye dinner for my girlfriend.

"Hey."

I jumped and looked over to see Angela standing next to me. I swallowed hard and offered her what I hoped was a smile.

"Hey."

"You all right?"

I looked over her head when I heard something slam in the kitchen and sucked in a deep breath.

"I didn't do anything wrong, Angela," I said quietly.

She placed a hand on my arm, rubbing up and down as she smiled softly and nodded.

"Rose likes to make things worse than they are, Edward. She'll get over it."

I nodded and licked my lips.

"She's a little bitter about Bella leaving, but she knows that it's what's best for her. I really hope you weren't expecting an easy road when it came to her."

"And how do you feel about it?"

"She's happy." Angela nodded and smiled again, squeezing my arm before dropping her hand. "And that's all I'd ever want for her."

I quickly wrapped my arms around her shoulders and hugged her tightly.

"Thank you," I whispered into her ear.

"Shit, Bella, look at this!" Rosalie exclaimed.

Of _course_ she'd walk in right at this very moment. Why would I expect anything differently?

I sighed heavily and backed away from Angela, reaching up and running my hands through my hair as I stared down at my feet again. I should've just stayed home.

"Are you being serious, Rosalie?" Bella seethed. "It's Ang!"

"And he's all…"

"He's thanking me for not being a massive bitch," Angela said easily and I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she smiled innocently at Rose. "No harm done."

"I don't understand you!" Rosalie exclaimed and I looked over at her to see her throwing her hands in the air. "There were _pictures_…"

"Of him walking down the damn street, Rose! It's not like they caught him making out with her!" Bella exclaimed, reaching up with one hand to rub her forehead. "Can we not talk about this anymore?"

"I just don't get it!"

"I didn't do anything!" I exploded, throwing my hands out at my sides and finally turning to face her. "I spent the night with a friend!"

I'd had enough. This was bullshit. She was accusing me of something that didn't even _concern_ her and she was trying to make Bella see her side. I did _not_ travel all this damn way to find out that Bella really was the perfect fucking woman for me just to have it turned around on me by _Rosalie_.

This was my _future_ she was trying to destroy and I wasn't going to deal with it anymore.

As if the media and paparazzi weren't enough to make it a big damn deal to begin with, now I had to contend with Bella's best friend about all the doubts that _she_ had? I wasn't dating _her_, thank God, I was dating _Bella_. And _Bella_ was the only one that had had enough faith in us not to freak out on me like she said she wouldn't.

"An ex-girlfriend!"

"Who spent the whole damn night talking about some other guy's ass! You weren't there; you don't know what the hell happened so you have _no right_ to make any kind of accusations!"

"You're an _actor_! You can baffle her in bullshit and she won't know the difference until someone shows up on your doorstep claiming to be pregnant with _your_ child!"

"Rose, come on," I heard Emmett say from behind me.

"I flew all the way over here and quit my fucking job for her! Why the hell would I even _think_ about someone else?"

"You _quit_?" everyone but Bella and Emmett echoed.

I kept staring at Rosalie, my blood close to boiling and my hands clenched into tight fists as I swallowed hard.

"Yes, I fucking quit because it wasn't worth losing her over it! If my job cost me the best thing that's ever happened to me then I wanted no part in it! So don't fucking _tell me_ that I'm just an _actor_," I sneered at her.

"I didn't…" she started and I vaguely registered that she didn't look as pissed off anymore.

It didn't matter to me right at the moment, of course, because she'd done a really good job at pissing me off.

Fuck, I don't know how Bella – and now, my poor brother – put up with her.

"No, you didn't know because you didn't even give me the fucking chance to explain anything," I seethed. "You just assumed that I was the asshole that thought I could actually _do_ something like that to her."

"Edward, I'm…"

"I _really_ don't want to hear it," I grumbled, turning on my heel and starting towards the front door.

I bypassed a rather shocked looking Ben and Emmett and barely resisted the urge to turn around and punch whoever it was that grabbed my wrist before I was able to make it to the front door.

Spinning around, I relaxed minutely when I saw Bella with her bottom lip in between her teeth and a slightly scared expression on her face.

"Come on," she said quietly, her voice shaking slightly as she tugged on my hand.

Guilt creeping into my chest as she turned and hooked her hand in mine, I followed her back through the living room and down a hallway that led to a staircase. We were both quiet as we walked up them and then down another hallway. I continued to follow her as we made it to a set of sliding glass doors and out onto the balcony I'd seen from the front. She pulled me out and closed the doors behind us as I walked to the railing and leaned against it.

It was still snowing and freezing and here we were, out on the balcony in nothing but our sweaters and my diminishing temper.

I closed my eyes tightly when she stood off the side.

Great. Scare her off, why don't you? Christ, I'm an idiot sometimes.

"Bella, I'm sorry," I said softly.

I heard her footsteps crunching on the snow and swallowed hard when I felt her hand on my back.

"Don't be," she whispered back, resting her head against my shoulder.

I quickly turned and wrapped her tightly in my arms, burying my head into her neck and tangling one of my hands in the ends of her hair.

"I didn't mean to scare you."

"I thought you were gonna hit me," she laughed into my chest, burying her nose into my shirt.

I swallowed hard and shook my head fiercely, fisting my hand in her hair.

"I'm sorry."

"You really need to stop apologizing for things that you didn't do," she said softly as she tilted her head and rested her chin on my shoulder.

"Well, I'm sorry for yelling at Rose, then," I said quietly, reaching up with my other hand to cradle the back of her head.

"Don't be sorry for that either," she laughed, pressing a small kiss against my ear. "That was pretty fucking hot."

I forced out a laugh and squeezed her tightly, taking a deep, shaky breath.

"This isn't turning out to be such a good night, is it?"

"It'll get better," she said confidently, nodding and kissing my ear again. "Just calm down a little and we'll go back in."

"Maybe I should've stayed home."

"If you stayed home, I stayed home."

"This is your dinner."

She shrugged and I smiled, shaking my head and taking a deep breath.

"You're here and I go where you are. So if you hadn't come tonight, then I wouldn't have either."

I huffed out a breath and shifted her in my arms, quickly capturing her lips with mine and curling my fingers into her hair. Her arms wrapped around my neck and I pulled her against me, tilting my head and kissing her more forcefully.

I pulled away when I felt her shiver in my arms and rested my forehead against hers, slowly opening my eyes.

"I really do love you so much, Bella."

She stepped up and kissed my bottom lip softly before stepping back down and cupping her hands around the back of my neck.

"Ditto."

I laughed and shook my head, kissing her one more time before standing up straight and sighing.

"I guess we should…"

I looked over at the door and trailed off when I saw Rose standing on the other side, her hands crossed in front of her and her eyes pleading as they met mine. Bella craned her neck around to find out what had stopped me and I watched as Rose held her hands up in surrender.

Bella turned back to me, dragging her hands down from my neck to rest on my chest.

"Let her talk?"

I looked down at her and ground my teeth together, nodding stiffly at her.

"Go inside," I said softly, relaxing my jaw and leaning down to kiss her forehead.

"You can't kill her."

"I won't."

But I smirked at the thought. Maybe just a little strangulation… that really wouldn't be all _that_ terrible would it?

"I mean it!"

"I promise," I laughed.

She huffed a little and smirked at me, shaking her head before stepping up to kiss me softly. She turned back towards the door and slid it open.

"Bella, I'm sorry," Rose said quickly. "I'm just…"

Bella merely nodded and reached out to grab Rose's wrist in her hand.

"I'm not the one you really need to apologize to."

With that, she slipped by Rose and walked inside, leaning back against the opposite wall and wrapping her arms around herself. I watched as Rose took a deep breath and stepped outside, sliding the door closed behind her. She turned completely towards me, her hands tangled around each other and her eyes darting from the floor of the balcony to my face.

I raised an eyebrow at her, crossing my arms over my chest and waiting as patiently as I could.

And it really wasn't fucking easy, either. My patience with her ran out about the time she accused me of cheating on Bella with Angela of all fucking people.

"I didn't know," she started. "And I don't ask before I accuse most of the time. Bella's like my sister and you're… _were_ an actor. It's like an instinct to protect her from you."

"She doesn't need protection," I ground out through my teeth. "She's strong enough on her own."

"I know that," she snapped, dropping her hands. "You have a sister. How'd you feel when she met her husband?"

All right, she had a point. I'd immediately disliked Jasper upon first sight. He was too blonde, too much of a smart ass, doted on Alice too damn much. She needed someone who was going to put her in her place when it was called for; not someone who was going to bow down and kiss her feet each time she walked in the room. But he balanced out her excitable side and it was obvious to everyone within a six mile radius that he loved her. And I really couldn't argue with something like that.

I nodded my acknowledgement and watched her force herself to relax.

"I know she loves you and you obviously love her more than I gave you credit for." I could almost _hear_ her swallow her pride as she said, "I'm sorry."

I nodded again, letting my arms drop to my sides and hooking my thumbs into my jean pockets.

"Thank you."

She nodded before quickly turning on her heel and sliding the door open again.

And I wanted to throw myself off the balcony when I saw Charlie standing next to Bella in the hallway.

I _definitely_ should've stayed home.

"Edward," he greeted, nodding his head at me. "Mind if we have a few words?"

Sure. What the fuck. I'll just stay out here for the rest of the night and freeze my ass off while everyone airs their personal opinion of what I didn't do that was so incredibly wrong.

"No, sir," I mumbled, my shoulders falling as I leaned back against the railing and stared down at my feet.

He stepped out onto the balcony and I looked up when he held out his hand and offered my jacket to me.

Fuck, he'd had this planned. And it was going to take a while if he was handing me my coat.

"Thanks," I said as I took it from him and quickly slung it over my shoulders.

I looked up as he slid the door closed to see Bella still standing against the wall, a small and what was probably meant to be encouraging smile on her face.

It terrified me.

"I want you to know that I'm not happy about this," he stated gruffly, looking out at Rose's snowy backyard. "Bella moving out to California is probably one of my worst nightmares."

"I'm gonna make sure that nothing happens to her, sir."

"If I didn't believe that, Bella would be in a jail cell in Albany where you couldn't get to her, Edward." I twisted my lips to the side and watched as he huffed out a deep breath. "But you seem to make her pretty happy so…"

He turned to me then and I held my breath, gripping tightly onto the railing of the balcony in preparation… just in case he shoved me off and made the decision a hell of a lot easier for Bella.

"Take care of her or I _will_ hunt you down."

And with that, he turned and opened the door, walking back into the house and out of my sight. I started breathing again, gaping at the spot he'd just been standing in as I lightened my hold on the railing and closed my eyes tightly.

I flinched when I heard another set of footsteps crunching in the snow and held my breath again.

I couldn't take much more of this.

"Breathe, please," I heard Bella's soft voice say from in front of me.

My eyes popped open and I quickly grabbed her shoulders, pulling her against me and burying my face into her neck as she laughed and wound her arms around me inside of the jacket.

"Is anyone else going to verbally attack me tonight?" I grumbled.

"No," she said quietly, still laughing as she rubbed her hands up and down my back. She tilted her head and kissed my neck. "Sorry."

"It's okay."

"You ready to go back inside? I think dinner's almost done and Seth has been yelling for me to get downstairs since they showed up."

I stood up straight, raising an eyebrow as I looked down at her.

"Who's Seth?"

"My step brother," she smiled, moving her arms from my jacket to reach up and frame my face with her hands. "No one to worry about."

I huffed and leaned down to kiss her once again.

"No one is safe anymore," I mumbled against her lips.

"I'm safe," she mumbled back, her hands slowly threading back through my hair. "And you're safe."

I smiled, sucking her bottom lip into my mouth and tracing it with my tongue.

"And that's all we really need to know," I whispered, breaking away from her momentarily.

"Mhmm," she hummed, sliding her tongue in between my lips and effectively cutting off any further conversation between us.

"Really? On the balcony? In the snow? Bella, you don't even have a damn coat on!" Emmett exclaimed.

I groaned and pulled away from her, closing my eyes and resting my forehead against hers.

"I hate you," I breathed.

"Yes, I'm aware of this. But dinner's done and Seth's talking about _Uno_ later so… move it!"

Bella laughed, kissing me once before moving her hands from my hair and grabbing one of mine.

"You've got me for the rest of your life, Cullen," she smirked as she pulled me back into the house. "Give everyone else a night."

And with those words, the night was immediately just… perfect. I hadn't been verbally assaulted by Rosalie when I walked in the house, her father hadn't threatened me if I didn't make her happy and Emmett hadn't interrupted a kiss that had the potential to melt away ten different kinds of stress.

Because right now – this moment _right now_ – was the official start of my life with Bella.

And there wasn't a damn thing that anyone else could say or do that would make this feeling – this feeling of being _home_ and _complete – _go away.

~*~

**Thanks to two wonderful women whom I couldn't have posted this without: Angie and Amanda. You two are amazing and I have no words in which to thank you properly for all that you've done for me concerning these last chapters.**

**And tomorrow, the epilogue! Yes, I'm heartbroken too.**


	38. Epilogue

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**I'll ramble at the bottom.**

~*~

***Bella***

"What are you still doing here?"

I looked up, blinking rapidly as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, to see the redhead I'd hired three months ago standing in front of me with her hands on her hips and her head tilted to the side.

"Huh?"

"Your man is coming home today!" Leslie laughed, throwing her arms out to her sides and shaking her head incredulously at me. "Get out of here!"

I quickly looked at the clock on the computer screen at my elbow and sat up straight in the chair, my eyes wide.

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed, shoving the papers covered in numbers from the past month into the right folder and jumping up. "I have to go!"

"Yes, you do. I'll close," she said, quickly rounding the long counter and shooing my hands away. "You go."

I grinned at her and hugged her tightly before grabbing my purse and cell phone and running out of the store with a promise to see her in a few days.

It was the middle of May and Edward was finally coming home from his movie shoot in Canada. I had so many things planned, so many things that I needed to do before he came home and I was already running fifteen minutes late.

I hurried out into the street in the middle of rush hour, quickly dialing in the right number and pressing the phone to my ear as I crossed the street and made my way over to the parking lot.

I'd settled in to California as best as I knew how. I still wasn't used to the attention and driving on the five-lane roads terrified me, but I was adjusting as best I could. Being here for four and a half months or not, it was still taking a hell of a long time to get used to this shit.

I missed Rosalie and Angela more than I thought possible but we had worked out a system for our phone calls. Every Friday night before they went out, they'd get together at Angela's house and I'd call in to talk to them for about an hour. They'd tell me all about what wasn't happening in our little town and kept me updated on the gossip that was apparently running rampant about me and Edward. I missed our Friday nights with a passion.

Emmett had moved out to New York to be with Rosalie in March and Edward had taken up calling to harass him regularly. I found it highly amusing – especially since Emmett hadn't let off of Edward for chasing after me. Rose, however, didn't appreciate any of it. And she wasn't all that fond of Edward still, either. He'd quit being an actor initially, yes, and she was rather peeved that no one had told her about how I'd made him go back until we were in a rousing game of _Uno_.

She hadn't been very happy about _that_, either. But between Emmett and myself telling her that no matter how much she bitched about it, it wasn't going to change anything, I _think_ she was finally starting to get it.

Seth called me regularly and always asked when I was going to send him a ticket so that he could come and visit us. Sue was still loving the bookstore and my father was… my father. Nothing much had changed with them and I missed that more than anything.

Edward and I had already made arrangements to go back and visit for the fourth of July weekend and I couldn't wait.

Alice and Jasper had made the move in February and she'd helped me out a lot when it came to finding everything that I could possibly need. She'd even gone so far as to rent two storefronts and say that I could have the other one that she just _accidentally_ happened to purchase at the same time.

Yeah, because Alice Whitlock is someone who does _anything_ accidentally.

But I hadn't had the heart to turn her down when she batted her eyes at me and said that it would be her welcoming gift to me. Plus it was in a really perfect spot. I was now ten times busier than I could've ever imagined being and while my head wasn't anywhere close to being above water when it came to finances, at least I was drawing customers.

Plus, it kept my mind busy while Edward was away.

I visited him as often as I could, but it wasn't easy and we didn't get nearly enough time with each other for understandable reasons. Instead of frustrating the hell out of both of us, we stuck to long ass phone calls as many times a day as we could and I threw myself into the bookstore.

I'd hired four of the best employees I could've ever asked for and let Alice and Tanya drag me out to Rodeo Drive whenever they felt the need.

Which was really fucking often.

Tanya – whom I'd met almost immediately after landing with Edward in January – was a sweetheart. Sure, she had expensive taste and had lived in Hollywood a bit too long, but she had easily accepted me and had kept me entertained when Edward had to catch up on everything he'd missed during his visit to _"make things right"_ with me.

Jeannie had gleefully tortured him with multiple interviews and photo shoots and anything and everything that she could think of that he'd missed. I think she just liked stressing him out as much as he'd stressed her out.

As much as I'd love to tell myself that everything in my life was perfect, it really wasn't. Edward and I argued over stupid shit when we were stressed – like why neither of us had made the bed that morning or why one of us hadn't called when we were supposed to – and we were constantly being photographed or hounded by someone as we left the condo. Edward was splashed on the cover of so many tabloids that claimed he was cheating on me almost weekly that it wasn't even funny anymore. A few months ago, I'd even read that they'd gotten hold of Jessica Stanley for a comment on me and now it was altogether very possible that all of Edward's fans _really_ hated me. I might've had a few on my side before the article came out, but after she told the horribly skewed version of the premiere she attended, I was officially the bitch that was trapping Edward into a relationship. It was absolutely amazing how many times I could be pregnant without looking the part.

It wasn't easy being in this kind of a relationship, but we always knew what was important at the end of the day.

_Us_.

Even if I forced him to sleep out on the couch or he wouldn't let me apologize to him no matter how long I sat on the other side of the room staring at him and fighting off tears – I may have wanted his forgiveness but I wouldn't force it from him – we were both fully aware of how much we loved each other.

We were no different than any other couple out there in the world and just because he was _Edward Cullen_ didn't mean a damn thing to me. So there were tens of thousands of girls claiming to be in love with him upon first sight and he had to kiss and have sex scenes with actresses ten times prettier than I was, but he still left socks on the floor and he still burned things when he tried to cook.

Most importantly, he still came home to me.

"Alice, are they ready?" I asked, cradling the phone against my shoulder as I shook my keys out of my purse and unlocked my car.

Yes, I had my own _car_. It was something that I was still getting used to; I missed my truck like one of my arms had been cut off. But since I refused to have anyone cater to me and drive me around to wherever I wanted to go just because of who I was dating and our condo was too far away from the store, Edward had insisted on buying me a brand new car.

A silver Volvo that looked eerily familiar to the rental he'd had while in New York that he used more than I did when he was home. He had a gorgeous car in the parking garage of our building and he chose to use the damn Volvo.

I didn't understand men at all sometimes.

"Yep! They should be at your door when you get home," she chirped. "And you've given me inspiration to make an entire line for this so thanks!"

"As long as _these pieces_ are one-of-a-kind," I stated, flopping down into the seat and throwing my purse into the passenger seat.

"I gave you my word. Now get going; you're late."

She hung up on me and I sighed, rolling my eyes as I jammed the keys into the ignition and slammed the driver side door. I dropped the phone into the passenger seat as well, hastily backing out of my parking spot and pulling out onto the road.

I made it back to the condo in record time, speeding into the parking garage and pulling in next to Edward's Aston Martin before I grabbed my stuff and jumped out of the car. I ran to the elevator and hopped on as the doors immediately opened, leaning back against the wall and blowing out a deep breath.

I always felt anxious and nervous whenever he returned from being away for longer than a few days. He'd had to go to France for some damn thing that Jeannie had roped him in to at the end of February and the store had just opened so going with him wasn't an option. By the time the week had ended, I was almost bouncing off the walls waiting for him to walk through the door.

I hated being away from him for long periods of time. I knew that it was going to happen and I was mostly okay with it. After the first few days without him, though, it started to get _really_ hard. I'd go to work wearing one of his shirts or I'd shower and use the extra bottle of his shampoo I'd bought just for that purpose.

It was insane how much I missed him when he was gone.

And he'd been gone for almost _two months_ this time. The two visits I'd managed hadn't nearly been enough to quench my need.

I practically ran off the elevator when the doors opened, skidding to a halt when I saw the telltale pink and silver striped boxes leaning against the door. Dancing a little, I grabbed them and unlocked the door, slamming my way inside and kicking the door shut behind me.

I put my purse on the small end table near the door and dropped my keys into the bowl on top of it, hugging the boxes to my chest as I flicked the lock and danced into the bedroom. I turned the light on and toed off my shoes, setting the boxes on the bed before shaking the top off of the first one.

I grinned, picking up the midnight blue silk and lace corset to hold it out in front of me. I'd asked Alice to let her imagination run wild with it – which would normally scare the shit out of me on any other occasion – and it had worked to my advantage.

Squirming excitedly, I set it back in the box and grabbed the other one, shaking the top off of that one and pulling out the floor length off-the-shoulder dress of the same color as the corset. Biting my bottom lip, I grinned and held it against me before dancing out of the bedroom and into the bathroom.

I couldn't _wait_ for him to get home.

~*~

I stood in the center of the living room with my bottom lip in my teeth as I heard his key in the door.

The corset and matching thong were surprisingly very comfortable and the dress looked pretty damn good on me. I'd managed to curl my hair without burning myself – as I'd so often done in the past – and had managed to walk around in the heels Alice had buried in the bottom of the dress box without killing myself.

Everything was _perfect_ and he was _home_.

I held my breath as the door opened and clasped my hands in front of me, watching as he dropped his keys in the bowl with mine and let all of his luggage fall from his shoulders and onto the floor. He was looking down at all of it and I could practically _hear_ him cursing it in his head. He finally shook his head and I watched as he reached up to run his hands through his hair.

"Bella?" he called out, stepping over his luggage.

I bit down on my bottom lip a little harder to keep from calling out to him and had to bounce on the heels of my feet a little to keep from running over to him and throwing myself into his arms.

"Bell—"

He finally looked up and his hands fell from his hair as his eyes met mine across the room. I watched the slow smile spread over his lips and released my lip from my teeth, twisting my hands together.

"Hi," I said softly.

"Hi," he said just as softly, his lips twitching to the side.

We stood there, both of us smiling like idiots for a few moments before he crossed the room in three easy steps and had me in his arms and his lips against mine. My hands immediately went to his hair and I opened my mouth to his, pressing myself against him and moaning quietly.

And there it was. That spark, that amazing jolt that I always got when we were reunited to let me know that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. He was my home, he was my life and no matter how far apart we were or how long it took to get us together again, it would always feel like this.

"I missed you," he mumbled, "so fucking much."

"Me too."

He placed his hands on my face, gently tipping my head back so that I could look up at him. I grinned, untangling my hands from his hair and dragging them down his chest, resting on his stomach as his thumbs circled my cheeks.

"You are absolutely gorgeous," he whispered, shaking his head slowly. "And I don't know how the fuck I survived without you for this long."

I reached up and grabbed one of his wrists with my hand, turning my head and placing my lips on his palm.

"It wasn't a piece of cake for me, either," I whispered, placing one more kiss against his palm before turning my head again and leaning my cheek into it. "You're…"

I reached up with my other hand and placed it on his cheek, feeling my eyes water for absolutely no fucking reason.

"Hey, hey, hey," he whispered, leaning down and resting his forehead against mine. "None of that. I'm home, I'm here…"

"Thank God," I breathed, wrapping my arms around his neck and capturing his lips with mine again.

His arms quickly wound around my waist and he pulled me tight against him, his hands splaying out on my back. His tongue traced my bottom lip and I immediately opened my mouth to his, our tongues meeting and twisting together. I felt his hands curling into fists around the back of the dress and smiled, breaking away from him.

"Not that I mind," he breathed, licking his lips, "but why are you so dressed up?"

"I wanted to look nice for you," I said softly, kissing his bottom lip gently. "I missed you."

"Oh, Bella, you have no idea," he whispered, shaking his head and breathing out a laugh.

"Maybe a small one."

"Mm, yeah, okay."

I laughed and stepped up, kissing him again.

"Make love to me, Edward," I whispered against his lips.

He moaned softly, his hands tightening in the fabric at my back before he released me. I reached out a hand to him and he grinned, shaking his head as he placed one arm behind my back and the other underneath my knees, lifting me up. I squealed, laughing and quickly wrapping my arms around his neck, burying my face against his throat as he walked towards the bedroom.

And the distance meant nothing. The time apart meant nothing. The tabloids and their skewed visions of what they thought they saw between us meant nothing.

Here, this moment and all the ones that were just like it, meant _everything_. We were Edward and Bella and we'd managed to overcome everything that had been thrown at us up until this point. We weren't perfect and we never would be, but we were exactly what the other needed and nothing was ever going to get in the way of that.

And that was the way we were always going to stay.

~*~

***Edward***

I leaned against the doorway of our bedroom, my arms crossed over my chest as I watched Bella's body move with each deep breath she took. The light from the hallway behind me was shining directly on her, illuminating her bare back and still curly, messy hair, her pale skin standing out against the black silk of the sheets I wasn't aware I'd owned before tonight. One of her arms was curled underneath her and the other was held out at her side.

I'd been under that arm a few minutes ago. I'd had her gloriously wrapped around me and pressed into me and the rest of the world had simply ceased to exist to me.

I smiled softly, leaning my head against the doorjamb as well and crossing my ankles over each other.

She was still here. She was waiting for me when I came home in a dress – with one of the most amazingly constructed matching corsets underneath it – that made my mouth water because she loves me and missed me just as much as I'd missed her.

The past month without her had been one of the worst I'd ever had to deal with. I'd known that it was going to be hard, but only seeing her twice since March had been something close to torture. And then not being able to really spend much time with her while she was there had me almost begging her to let me quit.

Bella was so much more to me than the career path I'd chosen and I'd gladly throw my hands in the air and be done with all of it if she'd let me. If she wanted to go back to her largely private life in New York, I'd gladly follow her. I'd get a regular job – maybe go back to school to become the doctor my father had always wanted me to be – and I wouldn't regret a single second of it.

I didn't need the glitz and the glamour and the polished sheen I'd had slapped on me every time my presence was requested at a red carpet event. What I needed was Bella in my life and if that meant leaving all of this behind, I'd do it.

But she still wouldn't let me. She said that she was adjusting, she was getting used to how everything worked and she loved the bookstore. She didn't want to leave and she'd reminded me that once this movie was finished, we had plenty of time together until the promotion for the movie needed to start picking up.

Then I was going to fucking get on my hands and knees to _beg_ her to come with me when I needed to fly out of the state for any damn reason. She had an amazing team at the bookstore and they were more than capable of running things for a few days.

Pushing myself off the doorjamb, I padded over to her sleeping form and carefully slid onto the bed, leaning down and pressing light kisses against her perfect shoulder blades.

I leaned over her, bracing each of my hands on the sides of her and began to make a slow trail with my lips down her spine, stopping at the small of her back when I heard her breathing start to get heavier.

"Mm," she mumbled, taking a deep breath.

I smiled, trailing my lips back up and gently kissing the back of her neck once I'd reached it, pushing her hair out of the way and slowly letting my hand drift down the path my lips had.

"Edward," she breathed, slowly turning over onto her back.

I quickly kissed the length of her collarbone, making my way down as my hand trailed lightly over her stomach, making small patterns on her smooth skin and absolutely fucking elated at the way her muscles contracted at my touch.

Her breath caught in her throat as my mouth made its way to her breasts, kissing them thoroughly before I took one of her nipples into my mouth.

"Oh," she whimpered, one of her hands making its way into my hair and curling into a loose fist.

I switched sides, my hand reaching up to cup her other breast as I gently used my teeth on her nipple.

Her back arched and she brought one of her legs up, placing her foot flat on the mattress as her breath continued to accelerate.

I smiled, flicking my thumb over her other nipple and very satisfied when I heard the low moan sound out of her throat.

"Yes," she breathed, her fist getting tighter in my hair before I moved back up to her neck.

"I love you, Bella," I whispered into her ear, slowly climbing on top of her and easily settling in between her legs.

"I love you too," she breathed out, her back falling onto the mattress as her other hand joined the one in my hair.

I ran my hand down her upraised thigh, slowly grinding my hips against hers as she threw her head back into the pillow.

I trailed my fingertips over the back of her thigh, slowly moving my hand in between her legs and listening as she moaned and whimpered underneath me, her hips thrusting up against mine when my fingers danced around her center.

"Please," she whispered, one of her hands trailing from my hair and down my back to rest on the waist band of my boxers. "I need you."

I turned my head, placing soft, slow kisses against her jaw line as I slowly ran one finger up and down.

Her hips bucked into my hand and I smiled, gently nipping at her jaw line as I finally slid two fingers inside of her. She moaned, throwing her head back into the pillow and moving her hips in sync with my hand.

"More," she moaned, her hand pulling at my boxers.

"Patience, love," I whispered into her ear.

"Ran out of that," she breathed, her thumb hooking into the waist band and slowly pulling them down.

I laughed against her neck, moving up and capturing her bottom lip in between mine. Her mouth opened and I quickly met her tongue with mine, speeding up the movement of my hand and gently flicking my thumb against her clit.

She moaned loudly, arching her back as her hips continued to move against my palm. She had one side of my boxers down, abandoning them as she wrapped her arms around my waist and dragged her fingernails down my spine.

I moaned into her mouth, loving the way that she seemed to lose control with me, and shifted my hips against hers. This only elicited another loud moan from her, her fingernails digging into my back as her hips started to move a little faster.

"It's so good to be home," I whispered, pulling away from her and leaning down to rest my forehead on her chest.

Her hands immediately dragged up my back, her fingernails leaving delightfully painful trails until she finally dragged them into my hair and pulled just enough to have me getting impossibly harder against her.

If that was _at all_ possible.

"I never want to be without you again," I whispered, tilting my head to drag my lips across her collarbone again.

I felt her clench around me and moved my hand a little faster, my thumb rubbing over her clit as her back arched off the bed again. Her moans became louder, interrupted only by my name falling off of her lips as I felt her burst around me.

She collapsed back into the bed, her chest heaving and her eyes closed tightly as I moved my hand from in between her legs and grabbed her upraised knee. I quickly slid my boxers down my legs and kicked them off, placing feather light kisses against her chest. Shifting myself just enough, I wrapped one arm around her knee and slowly slid into her, my eyes rolling back in my head at the mere feeling of being inside of her again.

Tight, warm, completely sheathed and fucking happier than hell about it, I was exactly where I always needed to be. I was _home_; even after all this time and the months apart, Bella was still home to me.

"Oh, Christ," I moaned out, leaning down to bury my head in her hair.

"Don't you dare stop," she breathed out, still gasping for air as she shifted her hips up to mine and moaned.

I slowly started moving my hips with hers, one of my arms still wrapped around her knee as the other anchored me above her.

"Look at me," I breathed, leaning up and moving my hips faster. "Bella, open your eyes and look at me."

Her hips matched my pace and her eyes slowly opened, meeting mine as her mouth fell open in a loud moan.

And there was nothing fucking sexier than having her eyes locked with mine while she did that. I leaned down, my hips working against hers as I fused my mouth to hers and tightened my grip on her knee. I felt her heel digging into my side, looking for purchase somewhere and quickly moved it over my shoulder, bracing my other hand on her other side.

She broke away from me and threw her head back into the pillow, the broken moan sounding out of her throat only driving me to go that much faster.

"Edward," she moaned, one of her hands grabbing onto my shoulder and the other curling into a fist in the bed sheets. "Faster."

I moaned at her words, my eyes rolling back into my head again as I did as she asked, the familiar tightening and coiling starting in the pit of my stomach.

"Bella," I moaned out, crying out hoarsely when I felt her intentionally squeezing her walls around me.

If she kept doing that, there was no way in hell that I'd be lasting as long as I wish I could.

And God knows I never wanted this to end. This was where I always wanted to be.

I threw my head back, grunting and moaning loudly when she started shaking beneath me, her breath sobbing out of her chest as her fingernails continued to dig into my shoulder.

"Look at me," I demanded again. "Bella, look at me."

She tilted her head up, her eyes snapping open and meeting mine once again, her breathing still labored and her lips parted.

"I love you, Bella," I whispered, hissing in a breath and reaching up to run my hand down her thigh, gently kneading her skin.

"I-I love you too," she moaned, her fingernails digging into my shoulder. "Oh, God."

"Keep your eyes on me," I demanded, thrusting into her with every word. "I want to see you."

"I'm almost… Edward, I'm so…"

"Yes," I whispered, digging my fingertips into her thigh and bunching my fist into the bed sheets by her head. "With me, Bella, come with me."

I kept my eyes on hers, uncurling my hand from the bed sheets and blindly searching for hers before linking our fingers together and squeezing her hand, raising them above her head.

She started to close her eyes and I increased the tempo of my thrusts, making them sharper and slightly harder until her eyes snapped open to meet mine again.

"On _me_, Bella," I breathed. "Your eyes on _me_."

"I'm…"

"Yes," I whispered again, untangling our hands.

I dragged it down her arm, over her shoulder and sides and finally in between us, my thumb easily finding her clit and eagerly rubbing against it.

The sounds that escaped her throat as her hips started to buck against mine caused every little thought in my head to disappear, the coil releasing and bursting forth as I felt her clench down around me, her back arching off the bed and both of our eyes closing.

I collapsed on top of her as her back hit the mattress again, our chests working against each other as we breathed heavily. We were still connected and there was absolutely no way that I wanted to move from her, from this spot, from exactly the way we were right now.

I turned my head into her shoulder as my breathing calmed and placed gentle kisses on her neck and up to her cheek, barely grazing the side of her mouth as she continued to breathe heavily.

"You okay?" I whispered, bringing one hand up to place it on her opposite cheek.

She nodded, turning her head to press her lips against mine. She reached up to place one of her hands on the back of my head and I felt her breathing start to even out again.

"I'm fucking perfect," she whispered, breaking away for a second before kissing me again.

I laughed, sucking on her bottom lip before propping myself up on my elbows and looking down at her. She smiled lazily up at me, reaching up to frame my face in her hands and run her thumbs down my cheeks.

"I'm so in love with you, Edward Cullen."

I grinned and I swear that I could feel my heart getting just that much bigger, as if it was going to make just that much more room for her in there.

As if my heart wasn't completely hers to begin with.

"And I," I whispered, bending down to kiss her again, "am so in love with you, Isabella Swan."

"I don't ever want to go that long without seeing you again." She brushed her nose against mine before kissing me once more. "I don't ever want to leave your side again."

"Marry me," I whispered.

My eyes widened and I watched as hers did the same, both of us completely freezing and staring at each other.

Had I really just said that? I hadn't meant to.

I knew it was going to happen eventually and I knew that one day, I was going to marry this girl.

I just hadn't anticipated proposing to her while I was still connected with her.

I didn't even have a ring. I didn't have a ring and all of the ideas I'd had when I thought of proposing to her hadn't happened.

No rose petals, no candles, no chocolate dipped strawberries; none of that was present. In fact, I'd just woken her up by practically jumping on her and now, while I was still comfortably inside of her, I'd just proposed marriage to her.

"Bella…"

"Yes," she breathed.

I blinked at her.

She just said yes.

She said _yes_.

We were engaged.

We were going to get married.

I was going to spend the rest of my life gloriously tied to this woman in every single possible fucking way.

"Yes," she said again, her voice stronger. "Yes, Edward, _yes_!"

I laughed, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and pulling myself down to her, fusing my mouth to hers and rolling us onto our sides.

"You wanna be with me forever?" I whispered against her mouth.

"Longer than that," she whispered back, her lips curving underneath mine as she tangled her hands in my hair. "So much longer than that."

I laughed again, running my hands over her back and trying to pull her as close to me as possible.

Not that we could really get that much closer, but it was worth a shot.

"I'm yours, Edward," she whispered, kissing me again. "I'm completely yours."

I buried my nose in her neck and kissed her shoulder, thinking that the smile on my face wasn't going to ever go away.

And I was perfectly okay with that.

"How are we going to tell everybody that this was how it happened?" she asked softly.

I laughed again, shaking my head and looking back up at her.

"We make something up."

She bit her bottom lip and looked up at me from underneath her lashes before throwing one leg over my hip and pulling me close to her. I moaned breathlessly when her action caused me to move even deeper inside of her.

"Better get on that," she whispered, rolling on top of me and slowly starting to move her hips back and forth over mine.

I quickly grabbed her hips, throwing my head back into the pillow behind my head and closing my eyes tightly.

And even as we both reached our releases again, all I could think about was how this woman was going to be _mine_ for the rest of my life. I was going to be waking up to her, falling asleep with her and making love to her whenever the hell we both wanted it.

I knew that it wasn't always going to be peaches and cream and it wasn't always going to be the way it was now, but I knew that it would be worth it.

She was my life and she was here to stay.

~*~

**So this is probably going to sound something close to an acceptance speech or some such shit, but really, there are a ton of people that I need to thank that I haven't yet. So here goes.**

**First of all, to all of the readers and the reviewers – you've gotten this story to over 3000 reviews. My mind cannot comprehend all of that. That's insane. So thank you from the very bottom of my heart and if I could send strawberry shortcake to all of you, I'd damn well do it in a heartbeat. You're amazing and I love all of you.**

**To all the communities and such that have mentioned this story, such as Lion_Lamb, The Twilight Enablers, The Fictionators, Rob's IMDb boards, the ladies over at the Twilighted thread, ROBsessed and anywhere else this has been mentioned or discussed, I bow down, thank and think you should all be put up on a pedestal. Incredibly amazing.**

**And of course, to Angie, who was the very first to review this story and has kind of stuck with me throughout the entire damn thing. You've dealt with my freak outs and my embarrassing questions and everything in between. You, lady, amaze me.**

**A few things: there will **_**not**_** be a sequel. There will be a few outtakes and a couple of one-shots that I've got planned but that's as far as it goes. I **_**am**_** working on another story and will be posting that next week some time. I'm taking a little time to get caught up on my reading.**

**All right, I think I'm done. So…**

**THE END.**


End file.
